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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



ENGLISH POEMS 



lEnglisIj fo^ms 



SELECTED AND EDITED WITH 
ILLUSTRATIVE AND EXPLANATORY 
NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES BY 



WALTER C. BRONSON, LiTT.D. 

Professor of English Literature 
Brown University 



B 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 



CHICAGO: THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN. I ADELPHI TERRACE 

1907 






UlatiSRY of CONGRESS} 

i Vwo Cooler Received | 

SEP 16 i90r 



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Oocyneht Bntry 
^ KXc, No, 

COPY i3. 



A 



Copyright 1907 By 
The Univeksity op Chicago 



Published September 1907 



Composed and Printed By 

The University of Chicago Press 

Chicago. Illinois, U. S. A. 



PREFACE 

This volume is the last in a projected series of four 
volumes of English poems, intended especially for use with 
college classes. The first volume will include Old English 
poems in translation, Middle English poems, a few speci- 
mens of the pre-Elizabethan drama, and old ballads. The 
second volume will cover the Elizabethan and Caroline 
periods. The third volume will cover the period of the 
Restoration and the eighteenth century. The present volume 
is devoted to poetry of the nineteenth century. 

The series as a whole is designed for use in survey 
courses covering the entire field of English literature, and 
contains about all the poetry needed for reading in such 
courses. The separate volumes, except the first, will also, 
it is hoped, be found available for courses in single periods, 
as furnishing a sufficient basis for study in the classroom. 
The first volume, although elementary in nature, should 
increase considerably the value of the series for introductory 
courses; because, as every experienced teacher knows, the 
student gets far more well-defined and lasting impressions 
from actually reading the earlier portions of our literature, 
even superficially and in translation, than from merely 
studying a history of the literature or hearing lectures. 

In the preparation of the present volume, authors and 
poems have been chosen both for their merit and for their 
significance in the history of English literature. The book 
is therefore not an anthology, or collection of the best 
poems. It is a collection of good poems that illustrate the 
different periods and phases of the work of individual 
poets, and the rise, growth, and decline of schools of poetry. 



vi PREFACE 

A judicious mean has been sought between the extremes of 
including too many minor authors and excluding them alto- 
gether. The first extreme would have robbed the greater 
poets of needed space, besides making the volume as a whole 
too scraj)py. The other extreme would have seriously 
lessened the value of the book as the basis for a study of 
English poetry in the nineteenth century, since lesser writers 
often show the tendencies of an age quite as clearly as the 
greater writers, and in any case some knowledge of them is 
essential to the full understanding of a period. 

Entire poems have been given whenever that was pos- 
sible, and the bulk of the book is made up of them. But in 
order to represent some authors at all adequately it has been 
found necessary to admit a limited number of extracts. 
Most of these are complete and intelligible by themselves, 
and some of them come from poems which have no essen- 
tial unity and therefore suffer little by dismemberment. A 
few rather fragmentary passages have been included, not 
for reading outside the classroom, but to serve the teacher 
as illustrations of the thought, style, and verse of poems 
which could not be represented otherwise. 

The latest text adopted by the author has been followed, 
without regard to the personal preferences of the editor. 
Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been modern- 
ized when it was necessary. But when the sense is doubtful, 
the original punctuation has been retained, or the changes 
made are recorded in the notes ; and unusual spellings which 
were deliberately preferred by an author, such as "thro' " 
and "tho' " in Tennyson, have been allowed to stand. 

The notes have been kept within moderate limits. Bio- 
graphical sketches, and criticisms by the editor, have been 
excluded ; for it is assumed that biography can be better 
supplied by a history of the literature, and criticism by the 
teacher. The notes include (i) the poet's theory of poetry 



PREFACE 



and his philosophy of Hfe when these can be given in his 
own words; (2) statements by the author or his friends 
which throw light on the meaning of a poem, or give cir- 
cumstances connected with the composition of it, or illus- 
trate the poet's method of work; (3) explanations of words, 
allusions, etc., which the average college student may find 
obscure; (4) variant readings of a few poems, such as 
"The Ancient Mariner" and "The Palace of Art," the 
re-working of which has special interest and significance ; 
(5) quotations from sources and parallel passages, or refer- 
ences to them, to show the poet's literary relationships and 
his way of handling raw material; (6) specimens of con- 
temporary criticisms on some of the leaders of new literary 
movements. A selected bibliography, adapted to the needs 
of undergraduates, follows the notes. It is believed that 
this material, some of which is not elsewhere easily access- 
ible to college classes, will be welcomed by teachers as an aid 
in presenting to sludents the thought and art of the poets 
studied and the literary life of their times. 

Essentially the same methods will be followed in the 
other volumes of the series. 

I wish to express my thanks to Mr. T. J. Kiernan, of 
the Harvard College Library, for access to first editions 
and the Shelley manuscript; to my colleagues in the depart- 
ment of English, for various helpful suggestions ; and to 
Professor F. G. Allinson, of Brown University, for aid 
on some points connected with Greek literature. The Mac- 
millan Company have courteously allowed me to print 
several passages from the Memoir of Tennyson by his son ; 
Ginn & Co., two notes from Professor Edward Dowden's 
edition of Wordsworth; and Professor V. P. Squires, a 
note from his edition of Tennyson's "In Memoriam." To 
my wife, who has aided me constantly by preparing the 



viii PREFACE 



copy, collating texts, reading- proof, making the indices, and 
writing notes (especially on matters relating to Greek life 
and literature), is largely due whatever accuracy the book 
may have. 

W. C. B. 



Brown University 
July 17, 1907 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface v 

William Lisle Bowles 

At Tynemouth Priory i 

The Bells, Ostend - i 

Samuel Rogers 

From The Pleasures of Memory 2 

William Wordsworth 

From An Evening Walk 3 

Simon Lee 4 

Lines Written in Early Spring 7 

Expostulation and Reply . 8 

The Tables Turned 9 

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey ... 10 

Animal Tranquillity and Decay 14 

The Simplon Pass 14 

Influence of Natural Objects 15 

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways 17 

Lucy Gray 17 

From The Recluse 19 

Michael 21 

To the Cuckoo 33 

My Heart Leaps Up 34 

Composed upon Westminster Bridge 34 

It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free 35 

London, 1802 35 

The Green Linnet 36 

The Solitary Reaper 37 

To the Men of Kent 38 

She Was a Phantom of Delight 38 

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 39 

Ode to Duty 4° 

Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle . . 41 

Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room .... 43 

The World Is Too Much with Us 44 

From Personal Talk 44 



CONTENTS 



Ode: Intimations of Immortality 4S 

Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge 50 

If Thou Indeed Derive Thy Light from Heaven . . . . 51 

To a Skylark 51 

Cahn Is the Fragrant Air 52 

Most Svsreet It Is with Unuplifted Eyes 53 

To a Child 53 

So Fair, So Sweet, withal So Sensitive 53 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 54 

France: An Ode 72 

Kubla Khan 75 

Christabel 76 

Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath 93 

Work without Hope 94 

Robert Southey 

The Holly Tree , . . 94 

Bishop Bruno 96 

From Thalaba the Destroyer 97 

My Days among the Dead Are Past loi 

Thomas Campbell 

From The Pleasures of Hope 102 

Ye Mariners of England . 103 

Hohenlinden 104 

Battle of the Baltic 105 

Lord Ullin's Daughter 107 

Walter Scott 

From The Lay of the Last Minstrel 109 

Lochinvar . 114 

Coronach 115 

From The Lady of the Lake 

Battle of Bear an Duine .116 

Proud Maisie 122 

County Guy 122 

Bonny Dundee 123 

George Gordon Byron 

Lachin Y Gair 125 

From English Bards and Scotch Reviewers 126 

She Walks in Beauty 129 

When We Two Parted . 129 

The Prisoner of Chillon ". . . .130 



CONTENTS xi 

To Thomas Moore 140 

From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 

Spain 141 

Greece 143 

Byron and Childe Harold 145 

Waterloo 149 

Lake Leman in Calm and Storm 151 

Venice 155 

Rome and Freedom 155 

The Ocean 159 

From Don Juan 

The ShipTVTeck 160 

Juan and Haidee 165 

The Sceptic and His Poem 168 

From The Vision of Judgment 170 

On This Day I Complete My Thirt}'-Sixth Year . . . 173 
Thomas Moore 

The Harp That Once through Tara's Halls 174 

Lesbia Hath a Beaming Eye 175 

Oh, Come to Me when Daylight Sets 176 

Oft, in the Stilly Night 177 

Twopenny Post-Bag— Letter V . . 177 

From LaUa Rookh 179 

Percy Bysshe Shelley . 

From Queen Mab 182 

From Alastor 183 

H}Tnn to Intellectual Beauty 185 

Ode to the West Wind 187 

The Indian Serenade 189 

The Mask of Anarchy 190 

The Cloud 200 

To a Skylark 203 

From Epipsychidion 206 

Adonais 211 

The World's Great Age Begins Anew 224 

To 225 

To Night 226 

Leigh Hitnt 

From The Story of Rimini 227 

John Keats 

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer 230 



xii CONTENTS 



From I Stood Tiptoe upon a Little Hill 230 

From Endymion 

Proem 233 

Hymn to Pan 234 

When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be .... 236 

On Sitting Down to Read "King Lear" Once Again . . . 237 

Mother of Hermes, and Still Youthful Maia 237 

From Hyperion 238 

Fancy 242 

Ode to a Nightingale 244 

Ode on a Grecian Urn 246 

To Autumn 248 

Ode on Melancholy 248 

The Eve of St. Agnes 249 

From Lamia 259 

La Belle Dame sans Merci 264 

Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast as Thou Art . . . .265 

Walter Savage Landor 

Ah, What AvaUs the Sceptred Race . . . . . . -265 

Mild Is the Parting Year, and Sweet 266 

A Fiesolan Idyl 266 

The Death of Artemidora 268 

The Hamadryad 268 

With an Album 275 

To Age 276 

I Strove with None 276 

Alfred Tennyson 

Claribel 277 

The Lady of Shalott 277 

The Palace of Art 282 

The Lotus-Eaters .291 

You Ask Me Why, tho' 111 at Ease 292 

Ulysses 293 

Morte D'Arthur 295 

Locksley Hall 302 

Break, Break, Break 309 

From In Memoriam A. H. H 310 

Tears, Idle Tears 316 

Sweet and Low 3^7 

The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls 318 

The Brook 318 



CONTENTS 



Northern Farmer, Old Style . .320 

Milton 322 

Wages 322 

Rizpah 323 

To Virgil 326 

Vastness 327 

Crossing the Bar 330 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

From Sonnets from the Portuguese 330 

A Musical Instrument 332 

The Forced Recruit ^^^ 

Robert Browning 

Heap Cassia, Sandal-Buds, and Stripes 334 

The Year 's at the Spring 335 

Cavalier Tunes 335 

My Last Duchess 337 

The Laboratory 338 

"How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" . . 340 

The Lost Leader 342 

Home Thoughts, from Abroad 342 

Home Thoughts, from the Sea . . 343 

Meeting at Night . . 343 

Parting at Morning 344 

The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church . . 344 

Saul 347 

Love among the Ruins 359 

Fra Lippo Lippi 361 

" Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came " 371 

The Last Ride Together 377 

The Patriot 380 

A Grammarian's Funeral 381 

Prospice 384 

Among the Rocks 385 

Abt Vogler 386 

Rabbi Ben Ezra 389 

Wanting Is — What ? 395 

Adam, Lilith, and Eve 395 

Summum Bonum 396 

Epilogue 396 

Arthur Hugh Clough 

Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth 397 



xiv CONTENTS 



The Latest Decalogue . . . 397 

Hope Evermore and Believe 398 

Qui Laborat, Orat . . ■ . 399 

'T/xvos Av/ivos 400 

From Songs in Absence 401 

"With Whom Is No Variableness, Neither Shadow of Turning . 402 

" Perche Pensa ? Pensando S' Invecchia" . . . " . . 402 

Blessed are They That Have Not Seen 402 

The Shadow 403 

Matthew Arnold 

To a Friend 406 

Shakespeare 407 

The Forsaken Merman 407 

Self -Dependence 411 

The Future 412 

Lines Written in Kensington Gardens 414 

The Scholar Gypsy 415 

Yes, in the Sea of Life Enisled 422 

Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse 423 

Dover Beach 429 

Palladium 430 

West London 431 

The Better Part 431 

Kaiser Dead 432 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 

The Blessed Damozel 434 

Sister Helen 438 

From The House of Life 447 

Mary's Girlhood 453 

For A Venetian Pastoral . 453 

Mary Magdalene 454 

For The Wine of Circe 454 

The Woodspurge 455 

John Keats 455 

Christina Rossetti 

Song 456 

Three Seasons 45^ 

Sleep at Sea 457 

Up-Hill ' 459 

Winter Rain 460 



CONTENTS 



Youth Gone, and Beauty Gone 461 

This Life Is Full of Numbness and of Balk . . . . .461 

William Morris 

An Apology 462 

The Death of Paris 463 

Algernon Charles Swinburne 

A Song in Time of Order, 1852 480 

When the Hounds of Spring Are on Winter's Traces . . . 482 

Rondel 483 

A Leave-Taking 484 

The Garden of Proserpine 485 

Hertha 488 

The Pilgrims 494 

A Forsaken Garden 497 

The Salt of the Earth 499 

Hope and Fear 499 

Ben Jonson . 500 

' The Sunbows 500 

Robert Browning . 502 

Notes 505 

Bibliography 593 

Index of Authors 611 

Index of Titles 611 

Index of First Lines 614 



WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES 

AT TYNEMOUTH PRIORY 

As slow I climb the cliff's ascending side. 
Much musing on the track of terror past, 
When o'er the dark wave rode the howling blast, 
Pleased I look back, and view the tranquil tide 
That laves the pebbled shore: and now the beam 
Of evening smiles on the gray battlement, 
And yon forsaken tower that time has rent; 
The lifted oar far ofif with transient gleam 
Is touched, and hushed is all the billowy deep ! 

Soothed by the scene, thus on tired Nature's breast 
A stillness slowly steals, and kindred rest, 
While sea-sounds lull her, as she sinks to sleep, 
Like melodies that mourn upon the lyre. 
Waked by the breeze, and, as they mourn, expire! 

1789- 

THE BELLS, OSTEND 

How sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal ! 
As when, at opening morn, the fragrant breeze 
Breathes on the trembling sense of pale disease. 

So piercing to my heart their force I feel! 

And hark! with lessening cadence now they fall! 
And now, along the white and level tide. 
They fling their melancholy music wide. 

Bidding me many a tender thought recall 

Of summer days, and those delightful years 

When from an ancient tower, in life's fair prime, 
The mournful magic of their mingling chime 

First waked my wondering childhood into tears ! 

But seeming now, when all those days are o'er, 

The sounds of joy once heard, and heard no more. 
17^7. 1789- 



ENGLISH POEMS 



SAMUEL ROGERS 



THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY 

Twilight's soft dews steal o'er the village green, 

With magic tints to harmonize the scene. 

Stilled is the hum that through the hamlet broke, 

When round the ruins of their ancient oak 

The peasants flocked to hear the minstrel play, 5 

And games and carols closed the busy day. 

Her wheel at rest, the matron thrills no more 

With treasured tales and legendary lore. 

All, all are fled; nor mirth nor music flows 

To chase the dreams of innocent repose. lo 

All, all are fled; yet still I linger here! 

What secret charms this silent spot endear? 

Mark yon old mansion frowning through the trees. 
Whose hollow turret wooes the whistling breeze. 
That casement, arched with ivy's brownest shade, 15 

First to these eyes the light of heaven conveyed. 
The mouldering gateway strews the grass-grown court. 
Once the calm scene of many a simple sport, 
When all things pleased, for life itself was new, 
And the heart promised what the fancy drew. 20 

As through the garden's desert paths I rove, 
What fond illusions swarm in every grove! 
How oft, when purple evening tinged the west, 
We watched the emmet to her grainy nest; 
Welcomed the wild bee home on weary wing, 25 

Laden with sweets, the choicest of the spring! 
How oft inscribed, with Friendship's votive rhyme, 
The bark now silvered by the touch of Time; 
Soared in the swing, half pleased and half afraid. 
Through sister elms that waved their summer shade; 30 

Or strewed with crumbs yon root-inwoven seat, 
To lure the redbreast from his lone retreat! 

Childhood's loved group revisits every scene. 
The tangled wood-walk and the tufted green ; 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



Indulgent Memory wakes, and lo, they live ! 35 

Clothed with far softer hues than light can give. 

Thou first, best friend that Heaven assigns below 

To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know; 

Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm, 

When nature fades and life forgets to charm; 40 

Thee would the Muse invoke ! to thee belong 

The sage's precept and the poet's song. 

What softened views thy magic glass reveals, 

When o'er the landscape Time's meek twilight steals ! 

As when in ocean sinks the orb of day, 45 

Long on the wave reflected lustres play, 

Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned 

Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind. 



1792. 



WILIJAM WORDSWORTH 



AN EVENING WAOC 

The bird, with fading light who ceased to thread 

Silent the hedge or steaming rivulet's bed, 

From his grey re-appearing tower shall soon 

Salute with boding note the rising moon. 

Frosting with hoary light the pearly ground, 5 

And pouring deeper blue to aether's bound. 

Rejoiced her solemn pomp of clouds to fold 

In robes of azure, fleecy white, and gold. 

While rose and poppy, as the glow-worm fades, 

Checquer with paler red the thicket shades. 10 

Now o'er the eastern hill, where darkness broods 
O'er all its vanished dells, and lawns, and woods. 
Where but a mass of shade the sight can trace. 
She lifts in silence up her lovely face; 

Above the gloomy valley flings her light, IS 

Far to the western slopes with hamlets white; 
And gives, where woods the checquered upland strew, 
To the green corn of summer autumn's hue. 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Thus Hope, first pouring from her blessed horn 
Her dawn, far loveHer than the moon's own morn; 20 

Till higher mounted, strives in vain to cheer 
The weary hills, impervious, black'ning near; 
Yet does she still, undaunted, throw the while 
On darling spots remote her tempting smile. 

The song of mountain streams unheard by day, 25 

Now hardly heard, beguiles my homeward way. 
All air is, as the sleeping water, still, 
List'ning th' aerial music of the hill, 
Broke only by the slow clock tolling deep, 
Or shout that wakes the ferry-man from sleep, 30 

Soon followed by his hollow-parting oar. 
And echoed hoof approaching the far shore; 
Sound of closed gate, across the water borne, 
Hurrying the feeding hare through rustling corn; 
The tremulous sob of the complaining owl, 35 

And at long intervals the mill-dog's howl; 
The distant forge's swinging thump profound, 
Or y«ll in the deep woods of lonely hound. 
1787-89. 1793. 

SIMON LEE 

THE OLD HUNTSMAN 
WITH AN INCIDENT IN WHICH HE WAS CONCERNED 

In the sweet shire of Cardigan, 

Not far from pleasant Ivor-Hall, 

An old man dwells, a little man, — 

'T is said he once was tall. 

Full five-and-thirty years he lived S 

A running huntsman merry; 

And still the centre of his cheek 

Is red as a ripe cherry. 

No man like him the horn could sound, 

And hill and valley rang with glee 10 

When echo bandied, round and round. 

The halloo of Simon Lee. 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



In those proud days he little cared 

For husbandry or tillage; 

To blither tasks did Simon rouse 15 

The sleepers of the village. 

He all the country could outrun, 

Could leave both man and horse behind; 

And often, ere the chase was done, 

He reeled and was stone-blind. 20 

And still there 's something in the world 

At which his heart rejoices; 

For when the chiming hounds are out, 

He dearly loves their voices ! 

But oh the heavy change! bereft 2$ 

Of health, strength, friends, and kindred, see! 

Old Simon to the world is left 

In liveried poverty. 

His master 's dead, and no one now 

Dwells in the Hall of Ivor; 30 

Men, dogs, and horses, all are dead; 

He is the sole survivor. 

And he is lean, and he is sick; 

His body, dwindled and awry, 

Rests upon ankles swoln and thick; 35 

His legs are thin and dry. 

One prop he has, and only one, — 

His wife, an aged woman. 

Lives with him, near the waterfall. 

Upon the village common. 40 

Beside their moss-grown hut of clay. 

Not twenty paces from the door, 

A scrap of land they have, but they 

Are poorest of the poor. 

This scrap of land he from the heath 45 

Enclosed when he was stronger; 

But what to them avails the land 

Which he can till no longer? 

Oft, working by her husband's side, 

Ruth does what Simon cannot do; 50 



ENGLISH POEMS 



For she, with scanty cause for pride, 

Is stouter of the two. 

And though you with your utmost skill 

From labour could not wean them, 

'Tis little, very little, all 55 

That they can do between them. 

Few months of life has he in store. 

As he to you will tell; 

For still, the more he works, the more 

Do his weak ankles swell. 60 

My gentle reader, I perceive 

How patiently you 've waited. 

And now I fear that you expect 

Some tale will be related. 

O reader ! had you in your mind 65 

Such stores as silent thought can bring, 

gentle reader ! you would find 
A tale in every thing. 

What more I have to say is short. 

And you must kindly take it ; 70 

It is no tale, but should you think, 

Perhaps a tale you '11 make it. 

One summer day I chanced to see 

This old man doing all he could 

To unearth the root of an old tree, 75 

A stump of rotten wood. 

The mattock tottered in his hand; 

So vain was his endeavour 

That at the root of the old tree 

He might have worked for ever. 80 

"You 're overtasked, good Simon Lee ; 
Give me your tool," to him I said; 
And at the word right gladly he 
Received my proffered aid. 

1 struck, and with a single blow 85 
The tangled root I severed, 

At which the poor old man so long 
And vainly had endeavoured. 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



The tears into his eyes were brought, 

And thanks and praises seemed to run 90 

So fast out of his heart I thought 

They never would have done. — 

I 've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds 

With coldness still returning; 

Alas ! the gratitude of men 95 

Hath oftener left me mourning. 

J798. 1798. 

LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING 

I heard a thousand blended notes, 
While in a grove I sate reclined, 
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts 
Bring sad thoughts to the mind. 

To her fair works did Nature link S 

The human soul that through me ran ; 
And much it grieved my heart to think 
What man has made of man. 

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, 

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths ; 10 

And 'tis my faith that every flower 

Enjoys the air it breathes. 

The birds around me hopped and played; 

Their thoughts I cannot measure. 

But the least motion which they made 15 

It seemed a thrill of pleasure. 

The budding twigs spread out their fan. 

To catch the breezy air; 

And I must think, do all I can, 

That there was pleasure there. 20 

If this belief from heaven be sent. 
If such be Nature's holy plan. 
Have I not reason to lament 
What man has made of man? 

irgS. 1798. 



ENGLISH POEMS 



EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY 

"Why, William, on that old grey stone, 
Thus for the length of half a day, 
Why, William, sit you thus alone, 
And dream your time away? 

"Where are your books? — that light bequeathed 5 

To beings else forlorn and blind ! 
Up ! up ! and drink the spirit breathed 
From dead men to their kind. 

"You look round on your Mother Earth, 
As if she for no purpose bore you ; 10 

As if you were her first-born birth, 
And none had lived before you !" 

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake, 

When life was sweet, I knew not why. 

To me my good friend Matthew spake, 15 

And thus I made reply : — 

"The eye, it cannot choose but see; 
We cannot bid the ear be still ; 
Our bodies feel, where'er they be. 
Against or with our will. 20 

"Nor less I deem that there are Powers 
Which of themselves our minds impress; 
That we can feed this mind of ours 
In a wise passiveness. 



"Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum 
Of things forever speaking. 
That nothing of itself will come. 
But we must still be seeking? 



25 



"Then ask not wherefore, here, alone. 
Conversing as I may, 30 

I sit upon this old grey stone, 
And dream my time away." 

1798. 1798. 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



THE TABLES TURNED 

AN EVENING SCENE ON THE SAME SUBJECT 

Up ! Up ! my friend, and quit your books, 
Or surely you '11 grow double. 
Up ! up ! my friend, and clear your looks ; 
Why all this toil and trouble? 

The sun, above the mountain's head, 5 

A freshening lustre mellow^ 

Through all the long green fields has spread. 

His first sweet evening yellow. 

Books ! 't is a dull and endless strife : 

Come, hear the woodland linnet, lo 

How sweet his music! on my life, 

There 's more of wisdom in it. 

And hark ! how blithe the throstle sings ! 

He, too, is no mean preacher. 

Come forth into the light of things; 15 

Let Nature be your teacher. 

She has a world of ready wealth. 

Our minds and hearts to bless — 

Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health, 

Truth breathed by cheerfulness. 20 

One impulse from a vernal wood 
May teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good. 
Than all the sages can. 

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings : 25 

Our meddling intellect 

Mis-shapes the beautious forms of things — 

We murder to dissect. 

Enough of Science and of Art; 

Close up those barren leaves; 30 

Come forth, and bring with you a heart 

That watches and receives. 

1798. 1798. 



lo ENGLISH POEMS 



LINES 

COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE 
BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR. JULY I3, 1798 

Five years have past; five summers, with the length 

Of five long winters ! and again I hear 

These waters, rolling from their mountain springs 

With a soft inland murmiir. Once again 

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, 5 

That on a wild secluded scene impress 

Thoughts of more deep seclusion, and connect 

The landscape with the quiet of the sky. 

The day is come when I again repose 

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view lo 

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts. 

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits. 

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 

'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see 

These hedge-rows — hardly hedge-rows, little lines 15 

Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms. 

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke 

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees. 

With some uncertain notice, as might seem 

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, 20 

Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire 

The hermit sits alone. 

These beauteous forms, 
Through a long absence, have not been to me 
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye; 

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din 25 

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them. 
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet. 
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart. 
And passing even into my purer mind 

With tranquil restoration; feelings too 30 

Of unremembered pleasure, such, perhaps. 
As have no slight or trivial influence 
On that best portion of a good man's life, 
His little, nameless, unremembered acts 
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, 35 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ii 

To them I may have owed another gift, 

Of aspect more sublime : that blessed mood 

In which the burthen of the mystery, 

In which the heavy and the weary weight 

Of all this unintelligible world, 40 

Is lightened; that serene and blessed mood 

In which the affections gently lead us on, 

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame 

And even the motion of our human blood 

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 45 

In body, and become a living soul, 

While, with an eye made quiet by the power 

Of harmony and the deep power of joy, 

We see into the life of things. 

If this 
Be but a vain belief, yet oh how oft — 50 

In darkness and amid the many shapes 
Of joyless daylight ; when the fretful stir 
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world. 
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart — 
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, 55 

sylvan Wye ! thou wanderer through the woods ; 
How often has my spirit turned to thee ! 

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, 
With many recognitions dim and faint. 

And somewhat of a sad perplexity, 60 

The picture of the mind revives again; 
While here I stand, not only with the sense 
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts 
That in this moment there is life and food 
For future years. And so I dare to hope, 65 

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first 

1 came among these hills ; when like a roe 
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides 
Of the deep rivers and the lonely streams. 

Wherever Nature led, more like a man 70 

Flying from something that he dreads than one 
Who sought the thing he loved. For Nature then 
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, 
And their glad animal movements, all gone by) 



12 ENGLISH POEMS 



To me was all in all. I cannot paint 75 

What then I was. The sounding cataract 

Haunted me like a passion ; the tall rock, 

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 

Their colours and their forms, were then to me 

An appetite, a feeling and a love, 80 

That had no need of a remoter charm. 

Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past, 

By thought supplied, nor any interest 

And all its aching joys are now no more. 

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this 85 

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts 

Have followed, for such loss, I would believe, 

Abundant recompense. For I have learned 

To look on Nature, not as in the hour 

Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes 90 

The still, sad music of humanity, 

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt 

A presence that disturbs me with the joy 

Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 95 

Of something far more deeply interfused. 

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 

And the round ocean, and the living air, 

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; 

A motion and a spirit, that impels 100 

All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 

A lover of the meadows and the woods 

And mountains, and of all that we behold 

From this green earth ; of all the mighty world 105 

Of eye and ear — both what they half create, 

And what perceive ; well pleased to recognise 

In Nature, and the language of the sense. 

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse. 

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul no 

Of all my moral being. 

Nor perchance, 
If I were not thus taught, should I the more 
Suffer my genial spirits to decay: 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



13 



For thou art with me here upon the banks 

Of this fair river, thou my clearest friend, 115 

My dear, dear friend; and in thy voice I catch 

The language of my former heart, and read 

My former pleasures in the shooting Hghts 

Of thy wild eyes. Oh yet a little while 

May I behold in thee what I was once, 120 

My dear, dear sister; and this prayer I make. 

Knowing that Nature never did betray 

The heart that loved her : 't is her privilege. 

Through all the years of this our life, to lead 

From joy to joy; for she can so inform 125 

The mind that is within us, so impress 

With quietness and beauty, and so feed 

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues. 

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 

Kor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 130 

The dreary intercourse- of daily life, 

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 

Our cheerful faith that all which we behold 

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon 

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ; 135 

And let the misty mountain winds be free 

To blow against thee; and in after years, 

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured 

Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind 

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 140 

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place 

For all sweet sounds and harmonies, oh then, 

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief. 

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts 

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, 145 

And these my exhortations ! Nor, perchance — * 

If I should be where I no more can hear 

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams 

Of past existence — wilt thou then forget 

That on the banks of this delightful stream 150 

We stood together; and that I, so long 

A worshipper of Nature, hither came 

Unwearied in that service — rather say. 



14 ENGLISH POEMS 



With warmer love, oh with far deeper zeal 
Of holier love ! Nor wilt thou then forget 155 

That after many wanderings, many years 
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, 
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me 
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake. 
1798. 1798. 

ANIMAL TRANQUILLITY AND DECAY 

The little hedgerow birds, 
That peck along the roads, regard him not. 
He travels on, and in his face, his step. 
His gait, is one expression : every limb. 
His look and bending figure, all bespeak 5 

A man who does not move with pain, but moves 
With thought. He is insensibly subdued 
To settled quiet ; he is one by whom 
All effort seems forgotten; one to whom 
Long patience hath such mild composure given 10 

That patience now doth seem a thing of which 
He hath no need. He is by nature led 
To peace so perfect that the young behold 
With envy what the old man hardly feels. 

J798. 1798. 

THE SIMPLON PASS 

Brook and road 
Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy pass. 
And with them did we journey several hours 
At a slow step. The immeasurable height 
Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, 5 

The stationary blasts of waterfalls, 
And in the narrow rent, at every turn. 
Winds thwarting winds bewildered and forlorn, 
The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky. 
The rocks that muttered close upon our ears, 10 

Black drizzling crags that spake by the wayside 
As if a voice were in them, the sick sight 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 15 

And giddy prospect of the raving stream. 

The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens, 

Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light, 15 

Were all like vi^orkings of one mind, the features 

Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree. 

Characters of the great Apocalypse, 

The types and symbols of Eternity, 

Of first, and last, and midst, and vi^ithout end. 20 

1799 f or 1804. 1845. 

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS 

IN CALLING FORTH AND STRENGTHENING THE IMAGINATION IN BOY- 
HOOD AND EARLY YOUTH 

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! 

Thou Soul, that are the Eternity of thought, 

And giv'st to forms and images a breath 

And everlasting motion ! not in vain. 

By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn S 

Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me 

The passions that build up our human soul, 

Not with the mean and vulgar works of man. 

But with high objects, with enduring things, 

With life and Nature, purifying thus 10 

The elements of feeling and of thought. 

And sanctifying by such discipline 

Both pain and fear, until we recognise 

A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. 

Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me IS 

With stinted kindness. In November days, 
When vapours rolling down the valleys made 
A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods 
At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer nights. 
When, by the margin of the trembling lake, 20 

Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went 
In solitude; such intercourse was mine. 
Mine was it in the fields both day and night, 
And by the waters, all the summer long. 
And in the frosty season, when the sun 25 



1 6 ENGLISH POEMS 



Was set, and, visible for many a mile. 

The cottage-windows through the twilight blazed, 

I heeded not the summons : happy time 

It was indeed for all of us ; for me 

It was a time of rapture ! Clear and loud 30 

The village-clock tolled six — I wheeled about, 

Proud and exulting like an untired horse 

That cares not for his home. All shod with steel 

We hissed along the polished ice, in games 

Confederate, imitative of the chase 2>S 

And woodland pleasures — the resounding horn, 

The pack loud-chiming and the hunted hare. 

So through the darkness and the cold we flew. 

And not a voice was idle : with the din 

Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; 40 

The leafless trees and every icy crag 

Tinkled like iron ; while far-distant hills 

Into the tumult sent an alien sound 

Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars, 

Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west 45 

The orange sky of evening died away. 

Not seldom from the uproar I retired 

Into a silent bay, or sportively 

Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, 

To cut across the reflex of a star, 50 

Image that, flying still befo.re me, gleamed 

Upon the glassy plain. And oftentimes. 

When we had given our bodies to the wind, 

And all the shadowy banks on either side 

Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still 55 

The rapid line of motion, then at once 

Have I, reclining back upon my heels. 

Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs 

Wheeled by me — even as if the earth had rolled 

With visible motion her diurnal round ! 60 

Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, 

Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched 

Till all was tranquil as a summer sea. 

1799. 1809. 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 



17 



SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS 

She dwelt among the untrodden ways 

Beside the springs of Dove; 
A maid whom there were none to praise, 

And very few to love : 

A violet by a mossy stone 5 

Half hidden from the eye; 
Fair as a star, when only one 

Is shining in the sky. 

She lived unknown, and few could know 

When Lucy ceased to be; 10 

But she is in her grave, and oh 
The difference to me! 
ir99- 1800. 

LUCY GRAY 

ORj SOLITUDE 

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray; 
And when I crossed the wild, 
I chanced to see at break of day 
The solitary child. 

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew; 5 

She dwelt on a wide moor — 
The sweetest thing that ever grew 
Beside a human door ! 

You yet may spy the fawn at play. 

The hare upon the green; lO 

But the sweet face of Lucy Gray 

Will never more be seen. 

"To-night will be a stormy night — 
You to the town must go ; 

And take a lantern, child, to light 15 

Your mother through the snow." 

"That, father, will I gladly do; 
'T is scarcely afternoon — 
The minster-clock has just struck two, 
And yonder is the moon!" 20 



1 8 ENGLISH POEMS 



At this the father raised his hook, 
And snapped a faggot-band; 
He plied his work; and Lucy took 
The lantern in her hand. 

Not blither is the mountain roe: 25 

With many a wanton stroke 

Her feet disperse the powdery snow, 

That rises up like smoke. 

The storm came on before its time: 

She wandered up and down, 30 

And many a hill did Lucy climb. 

But never reached the town. 

The wretched parents all that night 

Went shouting far and wide; 

But there was neither sound nor sight 35 

To serve them for a guide. 

At daybreak on a hill they stood 

That overlooked the moor, 

And thence they saw the bridge of wood, 

A furlong from their door. 40 

They wept, and, turning homeward, cried, 
"In heaven we all shall meet !" 
When in the snow the mother spied 
The print of Lucy's feet. 

Then downwards from the steep hill's edge 45 

They tracked the footmarks smal], 

And through the broken hawthorn-hedge, 

And by the long stone wall; 

And then an open field they crossed; 

The marks were still the same; 50 

They tracked them on, nor ever lost. 

And to the bridge they came. 

They followed from the snowy bank 

Those footmarks, one by one. 

Into the middle of the plank; 55 

And further there were none! 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 19 

— Yet some maintain that to this day- 
She is a living child; 
That you may see sweet Lucy Gray 
Upon the lonesome wild : 60 

O'er rough and smooth she trips along, 
And never looks behind, 
And sings a solitary song, 
That whistles in the wind. 
1799. 1800. 

FROM 

THE RECLUSE 

On man, on Nature, and on human life 
Musing in solitude, I oft perceive 
Fair trains of imagery before me rise, 
Accompanied by feelings of delight 

Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed; 5 

And I am conscious of affecting thoughts 
And dear remembrances, whose presence soothes 
Or elevates the mind, intent to weigh 
The good and evil of our mortal state. 
To these emotions, whencesoe'er they come, 10 

Whether from breath of outward circumstance, 
Or from the soul — an impulse to herself, — 
I would give utterance in numerous verse. 
Of truth, of grandeur, beauty, love, and hope, 
And melancholy fear subdued by faith; 15 

Of blessed consolations in distress; 
Of moral strength and intellectual power; 
Of joy in widest commonalty spread; 
Of the individual mind that keeps her own 
Inviolate retirement, subject there 20 

To conscience only, and the law supreme 
Of that Intelligence which governs all — 
I sing : — "fit audience let me find though few !" 

So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the bard — 
In holiest mood. Urania, I shall need 25 

Thy guidance, or a greater muse, if such 
Descend to earth or. dwell in highest heaven ! 



20 ENGLISH POEMS 



For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink 

Deep, and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds 

To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. 30 

All strength, all terror, single or in bands, 

That ever was put forth in personal form, 

Jehovah with his thunder, and the choir 

Of shouting angels, and the empyreal thrones, 

I pass them unalarmed. Not Chaos, not 35 

The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, 

Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out 

By help of dreams, can breed such fear and awe 

As fall upon us often when we look 

Into our minds, into the mind of man, 40 

My haunt, and the main region of my song. 

Beauty — a living presence of the earth, 

Surpassing the most fair ideal forms 

Which craft of delicate spirits hath composed 

From earth's materials — waits upon my steps, 45 

Pitches her tents before me as I move. 

An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves 

Elysian, Fortunate Fields — like those of old 

Sought in the Atlantic Main, — why should they be 

A history only of departed things, 5° 

Or a mere fiction of what never was? 

For the discerning intellect of man. 

When wedded to this goodly universe 

In love and holy passion, shall find these 

A simple produce of the common day. ^ 55 

I, long before the blissful hour arrives. 

Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse 

Of this great consummation : and, by words 

Which speak of nothing more than what we are. 

Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep 60 

Of death, and win the vacant and the vain 

To noble raptures ; while my voice proclaims 

How exquisitely the individual mind 

(And the progressive powers perhaps no less 

Of the whole species) to the external world 65 

Is fitted; and how exquisitely, too — 

Theme this but little heard of among men — 

The external world is fitted to the mind; 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 21 

And the creation (by no lower name 
Can it be called) which they with blended might 70 

Accomplish. This is our high argument, 
— Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft 
Must turn elsewhere — to travel near the tribes 
And fellowships of men, and see ill sights 
Of madding passions mutually inflamed ; 75 

Must hear humanity in fields and groves 
Pipe solitary anguish; or must hang 
Brooding above the fierce confederate storm 
Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore 

Within the walls of cities, — may these sounds 80 

Have their authentic comment; that even these 
Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn ! 
i;9Qr 1888. 

MICHAEL 

A PASTORAL POEM 

If from the public way you turn your steps 

Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll, 

You will suppose that with an upright path 

Your feet must struggle, m such bold ascent 

The pastoral mountains front you, face to face. 5 

But courage! for around that boisterous brook 

The mountains have all opened out themselves, 

And made a hidden valley of their own. 

No habitation can be seen; but they 

Who journey thither find themselves alone 10 

With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites 

That overhead are sailing in the sky. 

It is in truth an utter solitude; 

Nor should I have made mention of this dell 

But for one object which you might pass by, IS 

Might see and notice not. Beside the brook 

Appears a straggling heap of unhewn stones; 

And to that simple object appertains 

A story, unenriched with strange events. 

Yet not unfit, I deem, for the fireside, 20 

Or for the summer shade. It was the first 



22 ENGLISH POEMS 



Of those domestic tales that spake to me 

Of shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, men 

Whom I already loved — not verily 

For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills 25 

Where was their occupation and abode. 

And hence this tale, while I was yet a boy 

Careless of books, yet having felt the power 

Of Nature, by the gentle agency 

Of natural objects led me on to feel 30 

For passions that were not my own, and think 

(At random and imperfectly indeed) 

On man, the heart of man, and human life. 

Therefore, although it be a history 

Homely and rude, I will relate the same 35 

For the delight of a few natural hearts, 

And, with yet fonder feeling, for the sake 

Of youthful poets, who among these hills 

Will be my second self when I am gone. 

Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale 40 

There dwelt a shepherd, Michael was his name; 
An old man, stout of heart and strong of limb. 
His bodily frame had been from youth to age 
Of an unusual strength; his mind was keen. 
Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs, 45 

And in his shepherd's calling he was prompt 
And watchful more than ordinary men. 
Hence had he learned the meaning of all winds, 
Of blasts of every tone; and oftentimes, 

When others heeded not, he heard the south 50 

Make subterraneous music, like the noise 
Of bagpipers on distant Highland hills. 
The shepherd, at such warning, of his flock 
Bethought him, and he to himself would say, 
"The winds are now devising work for me !" 55 

And, truly, at all times, the storm, that drives 
The traveller to a shelter, summoned him 
Up to the mountains; he had been alone 
Amid the heart of many thousand mists, 
That came to him, and left him, on the heights, 60 

So lived he till his eightieth year was past. 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 23 

And grossly that man errs who should suppose 

That the green valleys and the streams and rocks 

Were things indifferent to the shepherd's thoughts. 

Fields, where with cheerful spirits he had breathed 65 

The common air; hills, which with vigorous step 

He had so often climbed, which had impressed 

So many incidents upon his mind 

Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear. 

Which, like a book, preserved the memory 70 

Of the dumb animals whom he had saved. 

Had fed or sheltered, linking to such acts 

The certainty of honourable gain; 

Those fields, those hills — what could they less? — had laid 

Strong hold on his affections, were to him 75 

A pleasurable feeling of blind love, 

The pleasure which there is in life itself. 

His days had not been passed in singleness. 
His helpmate was a comely matron, old, 
Though younger than himself full twenty years. 80 

She was a woman of a stirring life, 
Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had 
Of antique form; this large, for spinning wool; 
That small, for flax; and if one wheel had rest, 
It was because the other was at work. 85 

The pair had but one inmate in their house, 
An only child, who had been born to them 
When Michael, telling o'er his years, began 
To deem that he was old — in shepherd's phrase. 
With one foot in the grave. This only son, 90 

With two brave sheep-dogs tried in many a storm. 
The one of an inestimable worth. 
Made all their household. I may truly say 
That they were as a proverb in the vale 
For endless industry. When day was gone, 95 

And from their occupations out of doors 
The son and father were come home, even then 
Their labour did not cease, unless when all 
Turned to the cleanly supper-board, and there. 
Each with a mess of pottage and skimmed milk, 100 

Sat round the basket piled with oaten cakes 



24 ENGLISH POEMS 



And their plain home-made cheese. Yet when the meal 

Was ended, Luke (for so the son was named) 

And his old father both betook themselves 

To such convenient work as might employ 105 

Their hands by the fireside; perhaps to card 

Wool for the housewife's spindle, or repair 

Some injury done to sickle, flail, or scythe. 

Or other implement of house or field. 

Down from the ceiling, by the chimney's edge, no 

That in our ancient uncouth country style 
With huge and black projection overbrowed 
Large space beneath, as duly as the light 
Of day grew dim the housewife hung a lamp; 
An aged utensil, which had performed 115 

■Service beyond all others of its kind. 
Early at evening did it burn, and late. 
Surviving comrade of uncounted hours. 
Which, going by from year to year, had found 
And left the couple neither gay perhaps 120 

Nor cheerful, yet with objects and with hopes. 
Living a life of eager industry. 

And now, when Luke had reached his eighteenth year, 
There by the light of this old lamp they sate. 
Father and son, while far into the night 125 

The housewife plied her own peculiar work. 
Making the cottage through the silent hours 
Murmur as with the sound of summer flies. 
This light was famous in its neighbourhood. 
And was a public symbol of the life 130 

That thrifty pair had lived. For, as it chanced. 
Their cottage on a plot of rising ground 
Stood single, with large prospect, north and south, 
High into Easedale, up to Dunmail-Raisc, 
And westward to the village near the lake; 135 

And from this constant light, so regular 
And so far seen, the house itself, by all 
Who dwelt within the limits of the vale, 
Both old and young, was named The Evening Star. 

Thus living on through such a length of years, 140 

The shepherd, if he loved himself, must needs 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 2$ 

Have loved his helpmate ; but to Michael's heart 

This son of his old age was yet more dear — 

Less from instinctive tenderness, the same 

Fond spirit that blindly works in the blood of all, 145 

Than that a child, more than all other gifts 

That Earth can offer to declining man. 

Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts, 

And stirrings of inquietude, when they 

By tendency of nature needs must fail. 150 

Exceeding was the love he bare to him, 

His heart and his heart's joy ! . For oftentimes 

Old Michael, while he was a babe in arms, 

Had done him female service, not alone 

For pastime and delight, as is the use 155 

Of fathers, but with patient mind enforced 

To acts of tenderness ; and he had rocked 

His cradle, as with a woman's gentle hand. 

And in a later time, ere yet the boy 
Had put on boy's attire, did Michael love, 160 

Albeit of a stern unbending mind, 
To have the young one in his sight, when he 
Wrought in the field, or on his shepherd's stool 
Sate with a fettered sheep before him stretched 
Under the large old oak, that near his door 165 

Stood single, and, from matchless depth of shade. 
Chosen for the shearer's covert from the sun, 
Thence in our rustic dialect was called 
The Clipping-Tree, a name which yet it bears. 
There, while they two were sitting in the shade, 170 

With others round them, earnest all and blithe, 
Would Michael exercise his heart with looks 
Of fond correction and reproof bestowed 
Upon the child, if he disturbed the sheep 
By catching at their legs, or with his shouts 175 

Scared them, while they lay still beneath the shears. 

And when by Heaven's good grace the boy grew up 
A healthy lad, and carried in his cheek 
Two steady roses that were five years old, 
Then Michael from a winter coppice cut 180 

With his own hand a sapling, which he hooped 



26 ENGLISH POEMS 



With iron, making it throughout in all 

Due requisites a perfect shepherd's staff, 

And gave it to the boy; wherewith equipt 

He as a watchman oftentimes was placed 185 

At gate or gap, to stem or turn the flock; 

And, to his office prematurely called, 

There stood the urchin, as you will divine, 

Something between a hindrance and a help. 

And for this cause not always, I believe, 190 

Receiving from his father hire of praise, 

Though nought was left undone which staff, or voice, 

Or looks, or threatening gestures could perform. 

But soon as Luke, full ten years old, could stand 
Against the mountain blasts, and to the heights, 195 

Not fearing toil nor length of weary ways, 
He with his father daily went, and they 
Were as companions, why should I relate 
That objects which the shepherd loved before 
Were dearer now? that from the boy there came 200 

Feelings and emanations — things which were 
Light to the sun and music to the wind, — 
And that the old man's heart seemed born again? 

Thus in his father's sight the boy grew up; 
And now, when he had reached his eighteenth year, 205 

He was his comfort and his daily hope. 

While in this sort the simple household lived 
From day to day, to Michael's ear there came 
Distressful tidings. Long before the time 
Of which I speak, the shepherd had been bound 210 

In surety for his brother's son, a man 
Of an industrious life and ample means; 
But unforeseen misfortunes suddenly 
Had prest upon him; and old Michael now 
Was summoned to discharge the forfeiture, 215 

A grievous penalty, but little less 
Than half his substance. This unlooked-for claim, 
At the first hearing, for a moment took 
More hope out of his life than he supposed . 
That any old man ever could have lost. 220 

As soon as he had armed himself with strength 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 27 

To look his trouble in the face, it seemed 

The shepherd's sole resource to sell at once 

A portion of his patrimonial fields. 

Such was his first resolve ; he thought again, 225 

And his heart failed him. "Isabel," said he, 

Two evenings after he heard the news, 
"I have been toiling more than seventy years. 

And in the open sunshine of God's love 

Have we all lived; yet if these fields of ours 230 

Should pass into a stranger's hand, I think 

That I could not lie quiet in my grave. 

Our lot is a hard lot : the sun himself 

Has scarcely been more diligent than I; 

And I have lived to be a fool at last 235 

To my own family. An evil man 

That was, and made an evil choice, if he 

Were false to us; and if he were not false, 

There are ten thousand to whom loss like this 

Had been no sorrow. I forgive him; — but 240 

'T were better to be dumb than to talk thus. 

When I began, my purpose was to speak 

Of remedies and of a cheerful hope. 

Our Luke shall leave us, Isabel; the land 

Shall not go from us, and it shall be free; 245 

He shall possess it, free as is the wind 

That passes over it. We have, thou know'st. 

Another kinsman; he will be our friend 

In this distress. He is a prosperous man. 

Thriving in trade; and Luke to him shall go, 250 

And with his kinsman's help and his own thrift 

He quickly will repair this loss, and then 

He may return to us. If here he stay. 

What can be done? Where every one is poor, 

What can be gained?" 

At this the old man paused, 255 

And Isabel sat silent, for her mind 

Was busy, looking back into past times. 
"There 's Richard Bateman," thought she to herself, 
"He was a parish-boy — at the church-door 

They made a gathering for him, shillings, pence, 260 



28 ENGLISH POEMS 



And halfpennies, wherewith the neighbours bought 

A basket, which they filled with pedlar's wares; 

And, with this basket on his arm, the lad 

Went up to London, found a master there, 

Who, out of many, chose the trusty boy 265 

To go and overlook his merchandise 

Beyond the seas; where he grew wondrous rich, 

And left estates and monies to the poor. 

And, at his birth-place, built a chapel floored 

With marble, which he sent from foreign lands." 270 

These thoughts, and many others of like sort. 

Passed quickly through the mind of Isabel, 

And her face brightened. The old man was glad, 

And thus resumed: "Well, Isabel, this scheme. 

These two days, has been meat and drink to me. 275 

Far more than we have lost is left us yet. 

We have enough — I wish indeed that I 

Were younger; — but this hope is a good hope. 

Make ready Luke's best garments, of the best 

Buy for him more^ and let us send him forth 280 

To-morrow, or the next day, or to-night — 

If he could go, the boy should go to-night." 

Here Michael ceased, and to the fields went forth 
With a light heart. The housewife for five days 
Was restless morn and night, and all day long 285 

Wrought on with her best fingers to prepare 
Things needful for the journey of her son. 
But Isabel was glad when Sunday came 
To stop her in her work; for when she lay 
By Michael's side, she through the last two nights 290 

Heard him, how he was troubled in his sleep. 
And when they rose at morning she could see 
That all his hopes were gone. That day at noon 
She said to Luke, while they two by themselves 
Were sitting at the door, "Thou must not go : 295 

We have no other child but thee to lose. 
None to remember — do not go away, 
For if thou leave thy father he will die." 
The youth made answer with a jocund voice; 
And Isabel, when she had told her fears, 300 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 29 

Recovered heart. That evening her best fare 
Did she bring forth, and all together sat 
Like happy people round a Christmas fire. 

With daylight Isabel resumed her work; 
And all the ensuing week the house appeared 305 

As cheerful as a grove in spring. At length 
The expected letter from their kinsman came, 
With kind assurances that he would do 
His utmost for the welfare of the boy; 

To which requests were added that forthwith 310 

He might be sent to him. Ten times or more 
The letter was read over; Isabel 
Went forth to show it to the neighbours round; 
Nor was there at that time on English land 
A prouder heart than Luke's. When Isabel 315 

Had to her house returned, the old man said, 
"He shall depart to-morrow." To this word 
The housewife answered, talking much of things 
Which, if at such short notice he should go, 
Would surely be forgotten. But at length 320 

She gave consent, and Michael was at ease. 

Near the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll, 
In that deep valley, Michael had designed 
To build a sheepfold; and before he heard 
The tidings of his melancholy loss, 325 

For this same purpose he had gathered up 
A heap of stones, which by the streamlet's edge 
Lay thrown together, ready for the work. 
With Luke that evening thitherward he walked; 
And soon as they had reached the place he stopped, 330 

And thus the old man spake to him : "My son, 
To-morrow thou wilt leave me; with full heart 
I look upon thee, for thou art the same 
That wert a promise to me ere thy birth, 
And all thy life hast been my daily joy. 335 

I will relate to thee some little part 
Of our two histories ; 't will do thee good 
When thou art from me, even if I should touch 

On things thou canst not know of. After thou 

Firsf cam'st into the world — as oft befalls 340 



30, ENGLISH POEMS 



To new-born infants — thou didst sleep away 

Two days, and blessings from thy father's tongue 

Then fell upon thee. Day by day passed on, 

And still I loved thee with increasing love. 

Never to living ear came sweeter sounds 345 

Than when I heard thee by our own fireside 

First uttering, without words, a natural tune. 

While thou, a feeding babe, didst in thy joy 

Sing at thy mother's breast. Month followed month. 

And in the open fields my life was passed, 350 

And on the mountains, else I think that thou 

Hadst been brought up upon thy father's knees. 

But we were playmates, Luke; among these hills, 

As well thou knowest, in us the old and young 

Have played together, nor with me didst thou 355 

Lack any pleasure which a boy can know." 

Luke had a manly heart, but at these words 

He sobbed aloud. The old man grasped his hand. 

And said, "Nay, do not take it so — I see 

That these are things of which I need not speak. 360 

Even to the utmost I have been to thee 

A kind and a good father; and herein 

I but repay a gift which I myself 

Received at others' hands, for, though now old 

Beyond the common life of man, I still 365 

Remember them who loved me in my youth. 

Both of them sleep together: here they lived. 

As all their forefathers had done; and when 

At length their time was come, they were not loth 

To give their bodies to the family mould. 370 

I wished that thou shouldst live the life they lived; 

But 't is a long time to look back, my son. 

And see so little gain from threescore years. 

These fields were burthened when they came to me; 

Till I was forty years of age, not more 375 

Than half of my inheritance was mine. 

I toiled and toiled; God blessed me in my work. 

And till these three weeks past the land was free. 

It looks as if it never could endure 

Another master. Heaven forgive me, Luke, 380 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 31 



If I judge ill for thee, but it seems good 
That thou shouldst go." 

At this the old man paused; 
Then, pointing to the stones near which they stood, 
Thus, after a short silence, he resumed: 

"This was a work for us ; and now, my son, 385 

It is a work for me. But lay one stone — 
Here, lay it for me, Luke, with thine own hands. 
Nay, boy, be of good hope; — we both may live 
To see a better day. At eighty-four 

I still am strong and hale ;— do thou thy part ; 39° 

I will do mine. — I will begin again 
With many tasks that were resigned to thee; 
Up to the heights, and in among the storms, 
Will I without thee go again, and do 

All works which I was wont to do alone, 395 

Before I knew thy face. — Heaven bless thee, boy! 
Thy heart these two weeks has been beating fast 
With many hopes; it should be so — yes — yes — 
I knew that thou couldst never have a wish 
To leave me, Luke; thou hast been bound to me 400 

Only by links of love: when thou art gone, 
What will be left to us?— But I forget 
My purposes. Lay now the corner-stone, 
As I requested; and hereafter, Luke, 

When thou art gone away, should evil men 405 

Be thy companions, think of me, my son, 
And of this moment; hither turn thy thoughts, 
And God will strengthen thee : amid all fear 
And all temptation, Luke, I pray that thou 
Mayst bear in mind the life thy fathers lived, 410 

Who, being innocent, did for that cause 
Bestir them in good deeds. Now, fare thee well — 
When thou return'st, thou in this place wilt see 
A work which is not here; a covenant 

'T will be between us ; but whatever fate 415 

Befall thee, I shall love thee to the last, 
And bear thy memory with me to the grave." 

The shepherd ended here; and Luke stooped down, 
And, as his father had requested, laid 



32 ENGLISH POEMS 



The first stone of the sheepfold. At the sight 420 

The old man's grief broke from him : to his heart 
He pressed his son, he kissed him and wept; 
And to the house together they returned. 

Hushed was that house in peace, or seeming peace, 
Ere the night fell. With morrow's dawn the boy 425 

Began his journey, and when he had reached 
The public way, he put on a bold face; 
And all the neighbours, as he passed their doors, 
Came forth with wishes and with farewell prayers, 
That followed him till he was out of sight. 430 

A good report did from their kinsman com^, 
Of Luke and his well-doing; and the boy 
Wrote loving letters, full of wondrous news. 
Which, as the housewife phrased it, were throughout 
"The prettiest letters that were ever seen." 435 

Both parents read them with rejoicing hearts. 
So, many months passed on; and once again 
The shepherd went about his daily work 
With confident and cheerful thoughts; and now 
Sometimes, when he could find a leisure hour, 440 

He to that valley took his way, and there 
Wrought at the sheepfold. Meantime Luke began 
To slacken in his duty; and at length 
He in the dissolute city gave himself 

To evil courses ; ignominy and shame . 445 

Fell on him, so that he was driven at last 
To seek a hiding-place beyond the seas. 

There is a comfort in the strength of love; 
'T will make a thing endurable which else 
Would overset the brain, or break the heart. 450 

I have conversed with more than one who well 
Remember the old man, and what he was 
Years after he had heard this heavy news. 
His bodily frame had been from youth to age 
Of an unusual strength. Among the rocks 455 

He went, and still looked up to sun and cloud. 
And listened to the wind; and, as before, 
Performed all kinds of labour for his sheep, 
And for the land, his small inheritance. 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 33 

And to that hollow dell from time to time 460 

Did he repair, to build the fold of which 

His flock had need. 'T is not forgotten yet 

The pity which was then in every heart 

For the old man — and 't is believed by all 

That many and many a day he thither went 465 

And never lifted up a single stone. 

There, by the sheepfold, sometimes was he seen 

Sitting alone, or with his faithful dog, 

Then old, beside him, lying at his feet. 

The length of full seven years, from time to time, 470 

He at the building of this sheepfold wrought. 

And left the work unfinished when he died. 

Three years, or little more, did Isabel 
Survive her husband; at her death the estate 
Was sold, and went into a stranger's hand. 475 

The cottage which was named The Evening Star 
Is gone — the ploughshare has been through the ground 
On which it stood; great changes have been wrought 
In all the neighbourhood; yet the oak is left 
That grew beside their door, and the remains 480 

Of the unfinished sheepfold may be seen 
Beside the boisterous brook of Green-head Ghyll. 
1800. 1800. 



TO THE CUCKOO 

blithe new-comer ! I have heard, 

1 hear thee, and rejoice. 

O cuckoo ! shall I call thee bird, 
Or but a wandering voice? 

While I am lying on the grass 5 

Thy twofold shout I hear; 
From hill to hill it seems to pass. 
At once far off and near. 

Though babbling only to the vale. 

Of sunshine and of flowers, 10 

Thou bringest unto me a tale 

Of visionary hours. 



34 ENGLISH POEMS 



Thrice welcome, darling of the spring! 

Even yet thou art to me 

No bird, but an invisible thing, 15 

A voice, a mystery; 

The same whom in my school-boy days 

I listened to — that cry 

Which made me look a thousand ways 

In bush, and tree, and sky. 20 

To seek thee did I often rove 
Through woods and on the green; 
And thou wert still a hope, a love — 
Still longed for, never seen. 

And I can listen to thee yet, 25 

Can lie upon the plain 
And listen, till I do beget 
That golden time again. 

O blessed bird ! the earth we pace 
Again appears to be 30 

An unsubstantial faery place; 
That is fit home for thee ! 
1802. 1807. 

MY HEART LEAPS UP 

My heart leaps up when I behold 

A rainbow in the sky: 
So was it when my life began; 
So is it now I am a man; 
So be it when I shall grow old, 5 

Or let me die! 
The child is father of the man; 
And I could wish my days to be 
Bound each to each by natural piety. 
1802. 1807. 

COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, 
SEPTEMBER 3, 1802 

Earth has not any thing to show more fair; 
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 35 

A sight so touching in its majesty: 

This city now doth, like a garment, wear 

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, 5 

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie 

Open unto the fields and to the sky. 

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. 

Never did sun more beautifully steep, 

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill ; lO 

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep ! 

The river glideth at his own sweet will; 

Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep ; 

And all that mighty heart is lying still! 

1802. 1807. 

IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE 
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free; 
The holy time is quiet as a nun 
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun 
Is sinking down in its tranquillity; 

The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea: S 

Listen ! the mighty Being is awake. 
And doth with His eternal motion make 
A sound like thunder — everlastingly. 
Dear child ! dear girl ! that walkest with me here, 
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, 10 

Thy nature is not therefore less divine : 
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year, 
And worshipp'st at the Temple's inner shrine, 
God being with thee when we know it not. 

1803. 1807. 

LONDON, 1802 

Milton ! thou shouldst be living at this hour ; 

England hath need of thee : she is a fen 

Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen. 

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 

Have forfeited tneir ancient English dower S 

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men: 

Oh raise us up, return to us again; 



36 ENGLISH POEMS 



And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 

Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart; 

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea; lo 

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free. 

So didst thou travel on life's common way, 

In cheerful godliness, and yet thy heart 

The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 

1802. 1807. 

THE GREEN LINNET 

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed 
Their snow-white blossoms on my head. 
With brightest sunshine round me spread 

Of spring's unclouded weather, 
In this sequestered nook how sweet 5 

To sit upon my orchard-seat, 
And birds and flowers once more to greet. 

My last year's friends together! 

One have I marked, the happiest guest 

In all this covert of the blest: 10 

Hail to thee, far above the rest 

In joy of voice and pinion ! 
Thou, linnet ! in thy green array. 
Presiding spirit here to-day. 
Dost lead the revels of the May, 15 

And this is thy dominion. 

While birds and butterflies and flowers 
Make all one band of paramours, 
Thou, ranging up and down the bowers. 

Art sole in thy employment; 20 

A life, a presence like the air, 
Scattering thy gladness without care, 
Too blest with any one to pair. 

Thyself thy own enjoyment. 

Amid yon tuft of hazel trees, 25 

That twinkle to the gusty breeze. 
Behold him perched in ecstasies. 

Yet seeming still to hover; 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 37 

There! where the flutter of his wings 
Upon his back and body flings 30 

Shadows and sunny glimmerings, 
That cover him all over. 

My dazzled sight he oft deceives, 

A brother of the dancing leaves ; 

Then flits, and from the cottage eaves 35 

Pours forth his song in gushes, 
As if by that exulting strain 
He mocked and treated with disdain 
The voiceless form he chose to feign, 

While fluttering in the bushes. 40 

1803. 1807. 

THE SOLITARY REAPER 
Behold her, single in the field. 
Yon solitary Highland lass ! 
Reaping and singing by herself: 
Stop here, or gently pass ! 

Alone she cuts and binds the grain, 5 

And sings a melancholy strain ; 
O listen ! for the vale profound 
Is overflowing with the sound. 

No nightingale did ever chaunt 

More welcome notes to weary bands 10 

Of travellers in some shady haunt, 

Among Arabian sands; 

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard 

In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird, 

Breaking the silence of the seas 15 

Among the farthest Hebrides. 

Will no one tell me what she sings? 

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow 

For old, unhappy, far-off things. 

And battles long ago ; 20 

Or is it some more humble lay. 

Familiar matter of to-day? 

Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, 

That has been, and may be again? 



38 ENGLISH POEMS 



Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang 25 

As if her song could have no ending; 
I saw her singing at her work, 
And o'er the sickle bending: 
I listened, motionless and still; 

And as I mounted up the Viill, 30 

The music in my heart I bore, 
Long after it was heard no more. 
Between 1803 and 1805. 1807. 

TO THE MEN OF KENT 

Vanguard of Liberty, ye men of Kent, 
Ye children of a Soil that doth advance 
Her haughty brow against the coast of France, 
Now is the time to prove your hardiment ! 
To France be words of invitation sent ! 5 

They from their fields can see the countenance 
Of your fierce war, may ken the glittering lance 
And hear you shouting forth your brave intent. 
Left single, in bold parley, ye of yore 
Did from the Norman win a gallant wreath ; 10 

Confirmed the charters that were yours before: — 
No parleying now ! In Britain is one breath ; 
We all are with you now from shore to shore : 
Ye men of Kent, 'tis victory or death! 
1803. ~ 1807. 

SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT 

She was a phantom of delight 

When first she gleamed upon my sight; 

A lovely apparition, sent 

To be a moment's ornament: 

Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; 5 

Like twilight's, too, her dusky hair; 

But all things else about her drawn 

From Maytime and the cheerful dawn; 

A dancing shape, an image gay, 

To haunt, to startle, and way-lay. 10 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 39 

I saw her, upon nearer view, 

A spirit, yet a woman too ! 

Her household motions light and free. 

And steps of virgin liberty; 

A countenance in which did meet 15 

Sweet records, promises as sweet; 

A creature not too bright or good 

For human nature's daily food — 

For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. 20 

And now I see with eye serene 
The very pulse of the machine : 
A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
A traveller between life and death; 
The reason firm, the temperate will, 25 

Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; 
A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
To warn, to comfort, and command; 
And yet a spirit still, and bright 

With something of angelic light. 30 

1804. 1807. 

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD 
I wandered lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 
When all at once I saw a crowd, 
A host, of golden daffodils, 

Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 5 

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 

Continuous as the stars that shine 

And twinkle on the Milky Way, 

They stretched in never-ending line 

Along the margin of a bay; 10 

Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced, but they 

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: 

A poet could not but be gay IS 

In such a jocund company. 



40 ENGLISH POEMS 



I gazed — and gazed, — but little thought 
What wealth the show to me had brought: 

For oft, when on my couch I lie 

In vacant or in pensive mood, 20 

They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude ; 
And then my heart with pleasure fills, 
And dances with the daffodils. 
1804. 1807. 

ODE TO DUTY 
Stern Daughter of the Voice of God! 
O Duty ! if that name thou love 
Who art a light to guide, a rod 
To check the erring, and reprove; 

Thou who art victory and law 5 

When empty terrors overawe; 
From vain temptations dost set free. 
And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity! 

There are who ask not if thine eye 

Be on them; who in love and truth, 10 

Where no misgiving is, rely 

Upon the genial sense of youth; 

Glad hearts ! without reproach or blot, 

Who do thy work and know it not. 

Oh, if through confidence misplaced 15 

They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power, around them cast ! 

Serene will be our days and bright. 

And happy will our nature be, 

When love is an unerring light. 

And joy its own security. 20 

And they a blissful course may hold 

Even now, who, not unwisely bold, 

Live in the spirit of this creed, 

Yet seek thy firm support according to their need. 

I, loving freedom, and untried, 25 

No sport of every random gust 
Yet being to myself a guide. 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 4I 

Too blindly have reposed my trust; 

And oft, when in my heart was heard 

Thy timely mandate, I deferred 30 

The task, in smoother walks to stray: 

But thee I now would serve more strictly if I may. 

Through no disturbance of my soul, 

Or strong compunction in me wrought, 

I supplicate for thy control, 35 

But in the quietness of thought : 

Me this unchartered freedom tires ; 

I feel the weight of chance-desires; 

My hopes no more must change their name, 

I long for a repose that ever is the same. 40 

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear 

The Godhead's most benignant grace; 

Nor know we any thing so fair 

As is the smile upon thy face: 

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, 45 

And fragrance in thy footing treads; 

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; 

And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong. 

To humbler functions, awful Power! 

I call thee: I myself commend 50 

Unto thy guidance from this hour; 

Oh, let my weakness have an end ! 

Give unto me, made lowly wise. 

The spirit of self-sacrifice; 

The confidence of reason give; 55 

And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live ! 

1805. 1807. 

ELEGIAC STANZAS 

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE, IN A STORM, PAINTED BY 
SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT 

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged pile! 
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee; 
I saw thee every day; and all the while 
Thy form was sleeping on a glassy sea. 



42 ENGLISH POEMS 



So pure the sky, so quiet was the air, 5 

So like, so very like, was day to day. 
Whene'er I looked, thy image still was there; 
It trembled, but it never passed away. 

How perfect was the calm ! it seemed no sleep ; 

No mood, which season takes away or brings : lo 

I could have fancied that the mighty deep 

Was even the gentlest of all gentle things. 

Ah, then, if mine had been the painter's hand, 

To express what then I saw, and add the gleam, 

The light that never was, on sea or land, 15 

The consecration, and the poet's dream, 

I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile. 

Amid a world how different from this ! 

Beside a sea that could not cease to smile. 

On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss. 20 

Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine 
Of peaceful years, a chronicle of heaven; 
Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine 
The very sweetest had to thee been given. 

A picture had it been of lasting ease, 25 

Elysian quiet, without toil or strife; 

No motion but the moving tide, a breeze, 

Or merely silent Nature's breathing life. 

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart. 

Such picture would I at that time have made, 30 

And seen the soul of truth in every part, 

A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed. 

So once it would have been, — 't is so no more ; 

I have submitted to a new control; 

A power is gone, which nothing can restore; 35 

A deep distress hath humanised my soul. 

Not for a moment could I now behold 

A smiling sea, and be what I have been; 

The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old : 

This, which I know, I speak with mind serene. 40 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 43 

Then, Beaumont, friend! who would have been the friend 

If he had lived, of him whom I deplore, 

This work of thine I blame not, but commend; 

This sea in anger, and that dismal shore. 

't is a passionate work ! yet wise and well, 45 
Well chosen is the spirit that is here; 

That hulk which labours in the deadly swell. 
This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear! 

And this huge castle, standing here sublime, 

1 love to see the look with which it braves, 50 
Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time. 

The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves. 

Farewell, farewell, the heart that lives alone. 

Housed in a dream, at distance from the kind ! 

Such happiness, wherever it be known, 55 

Is to be pitied, for 't is surely blind. 

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer. 
And frequent sights of what is to be borne ! 
Such sights, or worse, as are before me here : 
Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. 60 

1805. 1807. 

NUNS FRET NOT AT THEIR CONVENT'S NARROW ROOM 
Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room; 
And hermits are contented with their cells, 
And students with their pensive citadels; 
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom. 
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom, 5 

High as the highest peak of Furness-fells, 
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells. 
In truth, the prison unto which we doom 
Ourselves no prison is ; and hence for me. 

In sundry moods, 't was pastime to be bound 10 

Within the sonnet's scanty plot of ground. 
Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be). 
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, 
Should find brief solace there, as I have found. 

j8o6f 1807. 



44 ENGLISH POEMS 



THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US 
The world is too much with us : late and soon, 
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; 
^ Little we see in Nature that is ours ; 
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon; 5 

The winds that will be howling at all hours, 
And are up gathered now like sleeping flowers; 
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune; 
It moves us not. — Great God ! I 'd rather be 
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 10 

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn — 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 
1806? 1807. 

FROM 

PERSONAL TALK 

Wings have we, and as far as we can go 

We may find pleasure : wilderness and wood. 

Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood 

Which with the lofty sanctifies the low. 

Dreams, books, are each a world ; and books, we know, $ 

Are a substantial world, both pure and good : 

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 

Our pastime and our happiness will grow. 

Therefind I personal themes, a plenteous store. 

Matter wherein right voluble I am, 10 

To which I listen with a ready ear: 

Two shall be named, pre-eminently dear — 

The gentle lady married to the Moor, 

And heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb. 

Nor can I not believe but that hereby 15 

Great gains are mine : for thus I live remote 

From evil-speaking; rancour, never sought, 

Comes to me not, malignant truth, or lie. 

Hence have I genial seasons, hence have I 

Smooth passions, smooth discourse, and joyous thought; 20 

And thus froni day to day my little boat 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 45 

Rocks in its harbour, lodging peaceably. 
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise. 
Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares — 
The poets, who on earth have made us heirs 25 

Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays ! 
Oh might my name be numbered among theirs. 
Then gladly would I end my mortal days. 
1806. 1807. 

ODE 

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILD- 
HOOD 

I 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight. 
To me did seem 
Apparelled in celestial light. 
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 5 

It is not now as it hath been of yore; 
Turn wheresoe'er I may. 
By night or day. 
The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 

II 
The rainbow comes and goes, 10 

And lovely is the rose; 
The Moon doth with delight 
Look round her when the heavens are bare; 
Waters on a starry night 

Are beautiful and fair; 15 

The sunshine is a glorious birth : 
But yet I know, where'er I go. 
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. 

HI 

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, 

And while the young lambs bound 20 

As to the tabor's sound. 
To me alone there came a thought of grief; 
A timely utterance gave that thought relief, 

And I again am strong: 



46 ENGLISH POEMS 



The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; 25 

No more shall grief of mine the season wrong; 
I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, 
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep. 
And all the earth is gay; 

Land and sea 30 

Give themselves up to jollity. 

And with the heart of May 
Doth every beast keep holiday; 
Thou child of joy, 
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy 

shepherd-boy ! 35 



Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call 

Ye to each other make; I see 
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; 
My heart is at your festival, 

My head hath its coronal, 40 

The fulness of your bliss, I feel, I feel it all. 

Oh evil day ! if I were sullen 

While Earth herself is adorning. 
This sweet May morning. 

And the children are culling 45 

On every side. 

In a thousand valleys far and wide. 

Fresh flowers ; while the sun shines warm. 
And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm . 

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! 50 

— But there's a tree, of many, one, 
A single field which I have looked upon. 
Both of them speak of something that is gone; 

The pansy at my feet 

Doth the same tale repeat : 55 

Whither is fled the visionary gleam? 
Where is it now, the glory and the dream? 

V 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting, 60 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 47 

And cometh from afar. 
Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 

From God, Who is our home: 65 

Heaven lies about us in our infancy! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing boy, 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy! 7° 

The youth, who daily farther from the east 

Must travel, still is Nature's priest. 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended; 
At length the man perceives it die away, 75 

And fade into the light of common day. 



Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; 
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind. 
And even with something of a mother's mind. 

And no unworthy aim, 80 

The homely nurse doth all she can 
To make her foster-child, her inmate man. 

Forget the glories he hath known. 
And that imperial palace whence he came. 



Behold the child among his new-born blisses, 85 

A six years' darling of a pigmy size! 

See where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, 

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses. 

With light upon him from his father's eyes! 

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, 90 

Some fragment from his dream of human life. 

Shaped by himself with newly-learned art : 

A wedding or a festival, 

A mourning or a funeral; 

And this hath now his heart, 95 

And unto this he frames his song; 
Then will he fit his tongue 



48 ENGLISH POEMS 



To dialogues of business, love, or strife; 

But it will not be long 

Ere this be thrown aside, loo 

And with new joy and pride 
The little actor cons another part, 
Filling from time to time his "humorous stage" 
With all the persons, down to palsied Age, 
That Life brings with her in her equipage, 105 

As if his whole vocation 

Were endless imitation. 

VIII 

Thou whose exterior semblance doth belie 

Thy soul's immensity; 
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep no 

Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind. 
That, deaf and silent, read'st the Eternal Deep, 
Haunted for ever by the Eternal Mind; 

Mighty prophet! seer blest! 

On whom those truths do rest iiS 

Which we are toiling all our lives to find. 
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; 
Thou over whom thy immortality 
Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, 
A presence which is not to be put by; 120 

Thou little child, yet glorious in the might 
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height; 
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 
The years to bring the inevitable yoke, 
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 125 

Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight. 
And custom lie upon thee with a weight 
Heavy as frost and deep almost as life! 

IX 

O joy! that in our embers 

Is something that doth live; 130 

That nature yet remembers 

What was so fugitive ! 
The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
Perpetual benediction — not indeed 
For that which is most worthy to be blest, 135 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 49 

Delight and liberty, the simple creed 

Of childhood, whether busy or at rest. 

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast; — 

Not for these I raise 

The song of thanks and praise; 140 

But for those obstinate questionings 

Of sense and outward things; 

Fallings from us, vanishings; 

Blank misgivings of a creature 
Moving about in worlds not realised; 145 

High instincts before which our mortal nature 
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised; 

But for those first aiifections, 

Those shadowy recollections. 
Which, be they what they may, 150 

Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, 
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing. 

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
Of the Eternal Silence; truths that wake, 155 

To perish never, 
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour. 

Nor man nor boy. 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy. 

Can utterly abolish or destroy! 160 

Hence, in a season of calm weather. 

Though inland far we be, 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 

Which brought us hither; 
Can in a moment travel thither, 165 

And see the children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 

X 

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! 

And let the young lambs bound 

As to the tabor's sound ! 170 

We in thought will join your throng, 

Ye that pipe and ye that play, 

Ye that through your hearts to-day 

Feel the gladness of the May! 



50 ENGLISH POEMS 



What though the radiance which was once so bright 175 
Be now forever taken from my sight, 

Though nothing can bring back the hour 
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower? 

We will grieve not, rather find 

Strength in what remains behind: 180 

In the primal sympathy 

Which, having been, must ever be; 

In the soothing thoughts that spring 

Out of human suffering; 

In the faith that looks through death; 185 

In years that bring the philosophic mind. 

XI 

And O ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves, 

Forebode not any severing of our loves ! 

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; 

I only have relinquished one delight 190 

To live beneath your more habitual sway. 

I love the brooks which down their channels fret, 

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; 

The innocent brightness of a new-bom day 

Is lovely yet; iQS 

The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
Do take a sober colouring from an eye 
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality — 
Another race hath been, and other palms are won. 
Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 200 

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears. 
To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 
1803-6. 1807. 

INSIDE OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE 

Tax not the royal saint with vain expense. 

With ill-matched aims the architect who planned — 

Albeit labouring for a scanty band 

Of white-robed scholars only — this immense 

And glorious work of fine intelligence ! S 

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 51 

Of nicely calculated less or more : 

So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense 

These lofty pillars; spread that branching roof 

Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells, 10 

Where light and shade repose, where music dwells 

Lingering, and wandering on as loth to die; 

Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof 

That they were bom for immortality. 

1820 F 1822. 

IF THOU INDEED DERIVE THY LIGHT FROM HEAVEN 

If thou indeed derive thy light from heaven. 

Then, to the measure of that heaven-born light, 

Shine, poet, in thy place, and be content. 

The stars pre-eminent in magnitude. 

And they that from the zenith dart their beams S 

(Visible though they be to half the earth. 

Though half a sphere be conscious of their brightness), 

Are yet of no diviner origin, 

No purer essence, than the one that bums. 

Like an untended watch-fire, on the ridge 10 

Of some dark mountain, or than those which seem 

Humbly to hang, like twinkling winter lamps. 

Among the branches of the leafless trees : 

All are the undying offspring of one Sire. 

Then, to the measure of the light vouchsafed, 15 

Shine, poet, in thy place, and be content. 

After 1813. 1827. 

TO A SKYLARK 

Ethereal minstrel ! pilgrim of the sky ! 

Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? 

Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye 

Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? 

Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, 5 

Those quivering wings composed, that music still! 

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; 
A privacy of glorious light is thine, 
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood 



52 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Of harmony, with instinct more divine: lO 

Type of the wise, who soar but never roam, 
True to the kindred points of heaven and home. 
1825. 1827. 

CALM IS THE FRAGRANT AIR 

Calm is the fragrant air, and loth to lose 
Day's grateful warmth, though moist with falling dews. 
Look for the stars, you '11 say that there are none ; 
Look up a second time, and, one by one, 
You mark them twinkling out with silvery light, 5 

And wonder how they could elude the sight! 
The birds, of late so noisy in their bowers. 
Warbled a while with faint and fainter powers. 
But now are silent as the dim-seen flowers. 
Nor does the village church-clock's iron tone 10 

The time's and season's influence disown; 
Nine beats distinctly to each other bound 
In drowsy sequence — how unlike the sound 
That, in rough winter, oft inflicts a fear 
On fireside listeners, doubting what they hear ! 15 

The shepherd, bent on rising with the sun. 
Had closed his door before the day was done, 
And now with thankful heart to bed doth creep. 
And joins his little children in their sleep. 
The bat, lured forth where trees the lane o'ershade, 20 

Flits and reflits along the close arcade; 
The busy dor-hawk chases the white moth 
With burring note, which Industry and Sloth 
Might both be pleased with, for it suits them both. 
A stream is heard— I see it not, but know 25 

By its soft music whence the waters flow; 
Wheels and the tread of hoofs are heard no more; 
One boat there was, but it will touch the shore 
With the next dipping of its slackened oar- 
Faint sound, that, for the gayest of the gay, 30 
Might give to serious thought a moment's sway, 
As a last token of man's toilsome day ! 
1832. 1835. 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 53 

MOST SWEET IT IS WITH UNUPLIFTED EYES 

Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes 

To pace the ground, if path be there or none, 

While a fair region round the traveller lies 

Which he forbears again to look upon; 

Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene, 5 

The work of fancy, or some happy tone 

Of meditation, slipping in between 

The beauty coming and the beauty gone. 

If Thought and Love desert us, from that day 

Let us break off all commerce with the Muse : 10 

With Thought and Love companions of our way, 

Whate'er the senses take or may refuse. 

The mind's internal heaven shall shed her dews 

Of inspiration on the humblest lay. 

1833- 1835. 
TO A CHILD 

WRITTEN IN HER ALBUM 

Small service is true service while it lasts; 

Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one: 

The daisy, by the shadow that it casts. 

Protects the lingering dew-drop from the sun. 

1834- 1835. 

SO FAIR, SO SWEET, WITHAL SO SENSITIVE 

So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive, 
Would that the little flowers were born to live 
Conscious of half the pleasure which they give ! 

That to this mountain-daisy's self were known 

The beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrown 5 

On the smooth surface of this naked stone ! 

And what if hence a bold desire should mount 
High as the Sun, that he could take account 
Of all that issues from his glorious fount! 

So might he ken how by his sovereign aid 10 

These delicate companionships are made. 

And how he rules the pomp of light and shade. 



54 ENGLISH POEMS 



And were the sister-power that shines by night 
So privileged, what a countenance of delight 
Would through the clouds break forth on human sight ! 15 

Fond fancies ! Wheresoe'er shall turn thine eye 
On earth, air, ocean, or the starry sky, 
Converse with Nature in pure sympathy: 

All vain desires, all lawless wishes quelled, 

Be thou to love and praise alike impelled, 20 

Whatever boon is granted or withheld. 

1844. 184s. 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 

IN SEVEN PARTS 

Argument 

How a Ship, having passed the Line, was driven by storms to the 
cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she 
made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean ; 
and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the 
Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country. 

PART I 
An ancient Ma- It is an ancient Mariner, 

riner meeteth » , , .-, r .1 

three gallants And he stoppeth One of three. 
ding-Teast^rnd"'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, 
detaineth one. Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ? 

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, S 

And I am next of kin; 

The guests are met, the feast is set; 

May'st hear the merry din." 

He holds him with his skinny hand: 
"There was a ship," quoth he. 10 

"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!" 

Eftsoons his hand dropt he. 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



55 



JJ^g^eddmg- He holds him with his glittering eye- 
bound by the The Wcdding-Guest stood still, 
seafaring man, And listens like a three years' child ; 
To heTwslafe'! ^he Mariner hath his will. 

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone; 
He cannot choose but hear; 
And thus spake on that ancient man, 
The bright-eyed Mariner. 

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, 
Merrily did we drop 
Below the kirk, below the hill, 
Below the lighthouse top. 



IS 



20 



The Mariner 
tells how the 
ship sailed 
southward with 
a good wind and 
fair weather, till 
it reached the 
line. 



The sun came up upon the left. 
Out of the sea came he; 
And he shone bright, and on the right 
Went down into the sea. 

Higher and higher every day, 

Till over the mast at noon" — 

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast. 

For he heard the loud bassoon. 



25 



30 



The Wedding- The bride hath paced into the hall. 

Guest heareth t-, i • i 

the bridal mu- K.ed as a rose IS she ; 

Mariner con- Nodding their heads, before her goes 

tinueth his tale. The merry minstrelsy. 

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, 
Yet he cannot choose but hear; 
And thus spake on that ancient man. 
The bright-eyed Mariner. 



35 



40 



The ship driven "And now the Storm-blast came, and he 

by a storm to- ,,, , , . 

ward the south Was tyrannous and strong; 
P°^^* He struck with his o'ertaking wings. 

And chased us south along. 

With sloping masts and dipping prow. 
As who, pursued with yell and blow, 
Still treads the shadow of his foe, 



45 



56 



ENGLISH POEMS 



And forward bends his head, 

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, 

And southward aye- we fled. SO 

And now there came both mist and snow, 
And it grew wondrous cold; 
And ice, mast-high, came floating by, 
As green as emerald. 

The land of ice And through the drifts the snowy clifts 55 

and of fearful t-v • 1 1 ^• 11 

sounds, where Did Send a dismal sheen ; 
wai't'i'beS. ^°^ shapes of men nor beasts we ken— 
The ice was all between. 



The ice was here, the ice was there. 

The ice was all around; 

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled. 

Like noises in a swound ! 



60 



At length did cross an Albatross, 

Thorough the fog it came; 

As if it had been a Christian soul, 65 

We hailed it in God's name. 

It ate the food it ne'er had eat. 

And round and round it flew. 

The ice did split with a thunder-fit; 

The helmsman steered us through ! 70 

And a good south wind sprung up behind; 
The Albatross did follow. 
And every day, for food or play. 
Came to the mariners' hollo. 

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 75 

It perched for vespers nine; 

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, 

Glimmered the white moon-shine." 

The ancient "God save thee, ancient Mariner, 

S?ykmet°h' From the fiends that plague thee thus! 80 

the pious bird of Why look'st thou SO?" — "With my cross-bow 
good omen. _ , , » „ , 

I shot the Albatross. 



Till a great sea- 
bird, called the 
Albatross, came 
through the 
snow-fog, and 
was received 
with great joy 
and hospitality. 



And lo ! the Al- 
batross proveth 
a bird of good 
omen, and fol- 
loweth the ship 
as it returned 
northward 
through fog and 
floating ice. 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 57 

PART II 

"The Sun now rose upon the right; 
Out of the sea came he, 

Still hid in mist, and on the left 85 

Went down into the sea. 

And the good south wind still blew behind. 

But no sweet bird did follow. 

Nor any day, for food or play, 

Came to the mariners' hollo. 90 

His shipmates And I had done a hellish thing, 

cry out against . , ., ,, , , 

the ancient Mar- And it would work em woe ; 

thfbird oSd ^'^^ ^^^ averred I had killed the bird 
luck. That made the breeze to blow. 

'Ah wretch !' said they, 'the bird to slay 95 

That made the breeze to blow !' 

But when the Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, 

thiyiustffy the The glorious Sun uprist; 

same, and thus Then all averred, I had killed the bird 

make them- n^, , ■, ■, r ■> • 

selves accom- That brought the fog and mist. 100 

crime.'" ^ * 'T was right,' said they, 'such birds to slay, 
That bring the fog and mist.' 

The fair breeze The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, 

S'emei^sfhl The furrow followed free; 

Pacific Ocean \Ye were the first that ever burst 105 

and sails north- _ , ., 

ward, even till it Into that Silent sea. 

reaches the line. 

The ship hath Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down ; 
becaimed!^''^^ 'T was sad as sad could be; 

And we did speak only to break 

The silence of the sea. no 

All in a hot and copper sky, 
The bloody Sun, at noon, 
-Right up above the mast did stand, 
No bigger than the Moon. 

Day after day, day after day, 115 

We stuck, nor breath nor motion; 
As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean. 



58 



ENGLISH POEMS 



And the Alba- Water, water, everywhere, 
be°avenged! ° And all the boards did shrink; 

Water, water, everywhere, 

Nor any drop to drink. 

The very deep did rot: O Christ! 
That ever this should be! 
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 
Upon the slimy sea. 

About, about, in reel and rout 
The death-fires danced at night; 
The water, like a witch's oils. 
Burnt green, and blue, and white. 

And some in dreams assured were 
Of the Spirit that plagued us so: 
Nine fathom deep he had followed us 
From the land of mist and snow. 

And every tongue, through utter drought, 
Was withered at the root; 
We could not speak, no more than if 
We had been choked with soot. 

Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks 
Had I from old and young! 
Instead of the cross, the Albatross 
About my neck was hung. 



125 



130 



A spirit had fol- 
lowed them; 
one of the in- 
visible inhabi- 
tants of this 
planet, neither 
departed souls 
nor angels; con- 
cerning whom 
the learned Jew, 
Josephus, and 
the Platonic 
Const antino- 
politan, Michael 
Psellus, may be 
consulted. They 
are very numer- 
ous, and there is 
no climate or 
element without 
one or more. 
The shipmates, 
in their sore dis- 
tress, would fain 
throw the whole 
guilt on the an- 
cient Mariner; 
in sign whereof 
they hang the 
dead sea-bird 
round his neck. 



The ancient 
Mariner be- 
holdeth a sign 
in the element 
afar off. 



135 



140 



PART III 

"There passed a weary time. Each throat 
Was parched, and glazed each eye. 
A weary time ! a weary time ! 
How glazed each weary eye! 
When, looking westward, I beheld 
A something in the sky. 

At first it seemed a little speck, 

And then it seemed a mist; 

It moved and moved, and took at last 

A certain shape, I wist. 



145 



150 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 59 

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! 

And still it neared and neared; 

As if it dodged a water-sprite, 155 

It plunged and tacked and veered. 

At its nearer ap- With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, 

proach, it seem- ,,. , , , , ., 

eth him to be a We could nor laugh nor wau ; 

dS'rtnsomhe Through utter drought all dumb we stood! 

freeth his I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, 160 

speech from the . , • j , * ■, . ., „ 

bonds of thirst. And cried, A sail ! a sail ! 

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked. 
Agape they heard me call : 
A flash of joy. Gramercy ! they for joy did grin. 

And all at once their breath drew in, 165 

As they were drinking all. 

And horror foi- 'See ! see !' I cried, 'she tacks no more ! 

bTI'ship'thTt"^ Hither to work us weal, 

comes onward Without a breeze, without a tide, 

without wind or ' . ' 

tide? She steadies with upright keel!' 170 

The western wave was all a-flame. 
The day was well-nigh done! 

Almost upon the western wave 

Rested the broad bright Sun ; 

When that strange shape drove suddenly 175 

Betwixt us and the Sun. 

It seemeth him And straight the Sun was flecked with bars 

\ol of a'sMp." ( Heaven's Mother send us grace ! ) , 

As if through a dungeon-grate he peered 

With broad and burning face. 180 

'Alas !' thought I, and my heart beat loud, 
'How fast she nears and nears ! 

Are those her sails that glance in the sun, 

Like restless gossameres? 

And its ribs are Are those her ribs through which the sun 185 

thrface'^oTthT Did peer, as through a grate? 
setting Sun. And is that Woman all her crew? 

The SoectrG" 

Woman and her Is that a Death ? and are there two ? 
KhS^on^'^ Is Death that woman's mate?' 



6o 



ENGLISH POEMS 



board the skele- 
ton sliip. Like 
vessel, like 
crew! 



Her lips were red, her looks were free, 
Her locks were yellow as gold, 
Her skin was as white as leprosy; 
The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she. 
Who thicks man's blood with cold. 



190 



in-D?afh h^v"^' ^^^ nsktd. hulk alongside came, 
diced for the And the twain were casting dice ; 

ship's crew, and i'-n. • j 1 t > it, •• 

she (the latter) ^ "^ game IS done ! I ve won ! I 've won !' 
dinTMaSer"' ^^^^^ ^^^' ^"^ whistles thrice. 



195 



No twilight 
within the 
courts of the 
Sun, 



The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out; 
At one stride comes the dark; 
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, 
Off shot the spectre-bark. 



200 



At the rising of 
the Moon 



We listened, and looked sideways up! 

Fear at my heart, as at a cup. 

My life-blood seemed to sip! 

The stars were dim, and thick the night; 

The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white; 

From the sails the dew did drip — 

Till clomb above the eastern bar 

The horned Moon, with one bright star 

Within the nether tip. 



205 



one after an- 
other, 



One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, 
Too quick for groan or sigh. 
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang. 
And cursed me with his eye. 



215 



his shipmates 
drop down 
dead. 



Four times fifty living men 
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan) 
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump. 
They dropped down one by one. 



But Life-in The souls did from their bodies fly, — 

Death begins t-., n j ^ 1 i- 1 

her work on the ■■■ "Cy tied to bliss or woe ! 
anckntMa- And every soul, it passed me by 
Like the whizz of my cross-bow!" 



220 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



6i 



The Wedding- 
Guest feareth 
that a spirit is 
talking to him; 



PART IV 

"1 fear thee, ancient Mariner! 
I fear thy skinny hand ! 
And thou art long, and lank, and brown, 
As is the ribbed sea-sand. 



225 



but the ancient 
Mariner as- 
sureth him of 
his bodily life, 
and proceedeth 
to relate his 
horrible pen- 
ance. 



I fear thee and thy glittering eye, 

And thy skinny hand, so brown." — 

'Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest! 230 

This body dropt not down. 

Alone, alone, all, all alone. 

Alone on a wide, wide sea! 

And never a saint took pity on 

My soul in agony. 235 



He despiseth The many men, so beautiful ! 

the creatures of . , ,, hi i i- , i- 

the calm. And they all dead did he ; 

And a thousand, thousand slimy things 
Lived on, and so did I. 

And envieth I looked upon the rotting sea, 

that they should a j j 

live, and so And drew my eyes away; 

many lie dead. J looked upon the rotting deck. 
And there the dead men lay. 



240 



I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; 
But or ever a prayer had gusht, 
A wicked whisper came, and made 
My heart as dry as dust. 



24s 



I closed my lids, and kept them close. 

And the balls like pulses beat; 

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky, 250 

Lay like a load on my weary eye. 

And the dead were at my feet. 



But the curse The cold Sweat melted from their limbs, 
liveth for Wm^^ Nor rot nor reek did they: 



in the eye 1 
dead men. 



The look with which they looked on me 
Had never passed away. 



255 



62 



ENGLISH POEMS 



In his loneliness 
and fixedness he 
yearneth to- 
wards the jour- 
neying Moon, 
and the stars 
that still so- 
journ, yet still 
move onward; 
and everywhere 
the blue sky be- 
longs to them, 
and is their ap- 
pointed rest, 
and their native 
country and 
their own natu- 
ral homes, 
which they en- 
ter unan- 
nounced, as 
lords that are 
certainly ex- 
pected and yet 
there is a silent 
joy at their ar- 
rival. 



An orphan's curse would drag to hell 

A spirit from on high; 

But oh ! more horrible than that 

Is a curse in a dead man's eye! 260 

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, 

And yet I could not die. 

The moving Moon went up the sky, 

And nowhere did abide; 

Softly she was going up, 265 

And a star or two beside. 

Her beams bemocked the sultry main, 

Like April hoar-frost spread; 

But where the ship's huge shadow lay. 

The charmed water burnt alway 270 

A still and awful red. 



By the light of Beyond the shadow of the ship, 

the Moon he ^ , i , i 

behoideth God's I watched the water-snakes : 

great"cafm°* '''^ They moved in tracks of shining white; 

And when they reared, the elfish light 

Fell off in hoary flakes. 



275 



Within the shadow of the ship 

I watched their rich attire : 

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black. 

They coiled and swam; and every track 

Was a flash of golden fire. 



280 



Their beauty 
and their happi- 
ness. 



He blesseth 
them in his 
heart. 



O happy living things ! no tongue 

Their beauty might declare : 

A spring of love gushed from my heart, 

And I blessed them unaware; 

Sure my kind saint took pity on me. 

And I blessed them unaware. 



285 



The spell begins The selfsame moment I could pray; 

to break. a j j: i r 

And from my neck so free 
The Albatross fell off, and sank 
Like lead into the sea. 



290 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



63 



PART V 

"Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing, 
Beloved from pole to pole! 
To Mary Queen the praise be given ! 
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven, 
That slid into my soul. 

By grace of the The silly buckets on the deck, 

holy Mother, t^i 1 1 • 

the ancient Ma- That had SO long remamed, 

freshed with ^ dreamt that they were filled with dew ; 

"^a*°- And when I awoke, it rained. 

My lips were wet, my throat was cold, 
My garments all were dank; 
Sure I had drunken in my dreams, 
And still my body drank. 

I moved, and could not feel my limbs; 
I was so light, almost 
I thought that I had died in sleep, 
And was a blessed ghost. 



295 



300 



30s 



He heareth 
sounds and 
seeth strange 
sights and com- 
motions in the 
sky and the ele- 
ment. 



And soon I heard a roaring wind; 
It did not come anear. 
But with its sound it shook the sails, 
That were so thin and sere. 

The upper air burst into life! 
And a liundred fire-flags sheen, 
To and fro they were hurried about! 
And to and fro, and in and out. 
The wan stars danced between. 



310 



315 



And the coming wind did roar more loud. 

And the sails did sigh like sedge; 

And the rain poured down from one black cloud; 320 

The Moon was at its edge. 

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still 

The Moon was at its side; 

Like waters shot from some high crag. 

The lightning fell with never a jag, 325 

A river steep and wide. 



64 



ENGLISH POEMS 



The bodies of 
of ship's crew 
are inspired, 
and the ship 
moves on; 



but not by the 
souls of the 
men, nor by 
daemons of 
earth or middle 
air, but by a 
blessed troop of 
angelic spirits, 
sentdown by 
the invocation 
of the guardian 
saint. 



The loud wind never reached the ship, 

Yet now the ship moved on! 

Beneath the Hghtning and the Moon 

The dead men gave a groan. 330 

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, 
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes ; 
It had been strange, even in a dream. 
To have seen those dead men rise. 

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on; 335 

Yet never a breeze up blew ; 

The mariners all 'gan work the ropes, 

Where they were wont to do; 

They raised their limbs like lifeless tools — 

We were a ghastly crew. 340 

The body of my brother's son 
Stood by me, knee to knee; 
The body and I pulled at one rope 
But he said nought to me." 

"I fear thee, ancient Mariner!" 345 

"Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest! 

'T was not those souls that fled in pain, 

Which to their corses came again, 

But a troop of spirits blest: 

For when it dawned, they dropped their arms, 350 
And clustered round the mast; 
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, 
And from their bodies passed. 

Around, around, flew each sweet sound. 

Then darted to the Sun; 355 

Slowly the sounds came back again, 

Now mixed, now one by one. 

Sometimes, a-dropping from the sky, 

I heard the sky-lark sing; 

Sometimes all little birds that are, 360 

How they seemed to fill the sea and air 

With their sweet jargoning! 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



65 



And now 'twas like all instruments, 
Now like a lonely flute; 
And now it is an angel's song, 
That makes the heavens be mute. 



36s 



It ceased; yet still the sails made on 

A pleasant noise till noon, 

A noise like of a hidden brook 

In the leafy month of June, 

That to the sleeping woods all night 

Singeth a quiet tune. 



370 



Till noon we quietly sailed on, 
Yet never a breeze did breathe; 
Slowly and smoothly went the ship, 
Moved onward from beneath. 



375 



The lonesome 
Spirit from the 
south pole car- 
ries on the ship 
as far as the 
line, in obedi- 
ence to the 
angelic troop, 
but still re- 
quireth ven- 
geance 



Under the keel nine fathom deep. 

From the land of mist and snow. 

The spirit slid; and it was he 

That made the ship to go. 380 

The sails at noon left off their tune, 

And the ship stood still also. 

The Sun, right up above the mast, 

Had fixed her to the ocean; 

But in a minute she 'gan stir, 38S 

With a short uneasy motion — 

Backwards and forwards half her length, 

With a short uneasy motion. 



Then, like a pawing horse let go. 
She made a sudden bound; 
It flung the blood into my head, 
And I fell down in a swound. 



390 



The Polar 
Spirit's fellow- 
dsemons, the in- 
visible inhabi- 
tants of the ele- 
ment, take part 
in his wrong; 
and two of them 



How long in that same fit I lay, 
I have not to declare; 
But ere my living life returned, 
I heard, and in my soul discerned. 
Two voices in the air. 



395 



66 



ENGLISH POEMS 



relate one to the 
other, that pen- 
ance long and 
heavy for the 
ancient Mariner 
hath been ac- 
corded to the 
Polar Spirit 
who returneth 
southward. 



'Is it he?' quoth one; 'is this the man? 
By Him Who died on cross, 
With his cruel bow he laid full low 
The harmless Albatross. 

The spirit who bideth by himself 
In the land of mist and snow, 
He loved the bird that loved the man 
Who shot him with his bow.' 

The other was a softer voice, 

As soft as honey-dew : 

Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done. 

And penance more will do.' 

PART VI 



400 



40s 



FIRST VOICE 



'But tell me, tell me! speak again, 
Thy soft response renewing — 
What makes that ship drive on so fast? 
What is the ocean doing?' 



410 



SECOND VOICE 

'Still as a slave before his lord, 
The Ocean hath no blast; 
His great bright eye most silently 
Up to the Moon is cast — 

If he may know which way to go; 
For she guides him smooth or grim. 
See, brother, see ! how graciously 
She looketh down on him.' 



41S 



420 



FIRST VOICE 



'But why drives on that ship so fast. 
Without or wave or wind?' 



The Mariner 

hath been cast 

into a trance; 

for the angelic 

power causeth 

the vessel to SECOND VOICE 

drive northward 

faster than hu- 'The air is cut away before, 

man life could » 1 1 t l 1 • j 

endure. And closes from behmd. 



42s 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



67 



Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high! 
Or we shall be belated; 
For slow and slow that ship will go, 
When the Mariner's trance is abated.' 



The supernatu- I woke, and We were sailmg on 

ral motion is re- » • ^i .1 

tarded; the Ma- As m a gentle weather; 

IndhfsTe^nlAce "^ was night, calm night, the Moon was high, 

begins anew. The dead men stood together. 



430 



All stood together on the deck. 
For a charnel-dungeon fitter; 
All fixed on me their stony eyes, 
That in the Moon did glitter. 



435 



The pang, the curse, with which they died, 
Had never passed away; 
I could not draw my eyes from theirs. 
Nor turn them up to pray. 



440 



The curse is And now this Spell was snapt ; once more 

finally expiated, x • j i.i. 

1 Viewed the ocean green. 

And looked far forth, yet little saw 

Of what had else been seen — 



445 



Like one that on a lonesome road 

Doth walk in fear and dread. 

And having once turned round walks on, 

And turns no more his head. 

Because he knows a frightful fiend 

Doth close behind him tread. 



450 



But soon there breathed a wind on me, 
Nor sound nor motion made; 
Its path was not upon the sea. 
In ripple or in shade. 



455 



It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek 
Like a meadow-gale of spring — 
It mingled strangely with my fears, 
Yet it felt like a welcoming. 



68 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, 
Yet she sailed softly too; 
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze — 
On me alone it blew. 

And the ancient Oh, dream of joy ! is this indeed 

Mariner be- r^, i- i ,i , t 2 

holdeth his na- The lighthouse top I see? 
tive country. jg ^^is the hill? is this the kirk? 
Is this mine own countree? 

We drifted o'er the harbour-bar. 
And I with sobs did pray — 
'O let me be awake, my God! 
Or let me sleep alway!' 

The harbour-bay was clear as glass, 
So smoothly it was strewn ! 
And on the bay the moonlight lay, 
And the shadow of the Moon. 

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, 
That stands above the rock; 
The moonlight steeped in silentness 
The steady weathercock. 

And the bay was white with silent light, 

Till, rising from the same, 

The angelic Full many shapes, that shadows were, 
spirits leave the t • 1 

dead bodies, I" crimson colours came. 

and appear in A little distance f rom the prow 
oH^ght'!'' ^""'"'^ Those crimson shadows were; 

I turned my eyes upon the deck — 
Oh Christ! what saw I there! 

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, 

And, by the holy rood! 

A man all light, a seraph-man, 

On every corse there stood. 

This seraph-band each waved his hand; 
It was a heavenly sight ! 
They stood as signals to the land. 
Each one a lovely light. 



460 



465 



470 



475 



480 



48s 



490 



495 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



69 



This seraph-band each waved his hand, 
No voice did they impart — 
No voice ; but oh ! the silence sank 
Like music on my heart. 

But soon I heard the dash of oars, 
I heard the Pilot's cheer; 
My head was turned perforce away, 
And I saw a boat appear. 

The Pilot and the Pilot's boy, 

I heard them coming fast ; 

Dear Lord in Heaven ! it was a joy 

The dead men could not blast. 

I saw a third — I heard his voice; 

It is the Hermit good ! 

He singeth loud his godly hymns 

That he makes in the wood. 

He '11 shrieve my soul, he '11 wash away 

The Albatross's blood. 



500 



SOS 



Sio 



PART VII 

The Hermit of "This Hermit good lives in that wood 

Which slopes down to the sea. 515 

How loudly his sweet voice he rears ! 
He loves to talk with marineres 
That come from a far countree. 

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve — 

He hath a cushion plump ; 520 

It is the moss that wholly hides 

The rotted old oak-stump. 

The skiff-boat neared ; I heard them talk : 

'Why, this is strange, I trow ! 

Where are those lights so many and fair, 525 

That signal made but now?' 

approacheth 'Strange, by my faith !' the Hermit said — 
wonder. 'And they answered not our cheer! 

The planks look warped ! and see those sails. 



7° 



ENGLISH POEMS 



How thin they are and sere ! 530 

I never saw aught like to them, 
Unless perchance it were 

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag 

My forest-brook along, 

When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, S3S 

And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, 

That eats the she-wolf's young.' 

'Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look,' 
The Pilot made reply; 

'I am a-feared.' — 'Push on, push on,' 540 

Said the Hermit cheerily. 



The boat came closer to the ship, 
But I nor spake nor stirred; 
The boat came close beneath the ship. 
And straight a sound was heard. 



545 



The ship sud- 
denly sinketh. 



The ancient 
Mariner is 
saved in the 
Pilot's boat. 



Under the water it rumbled on, 
Still louder and more dread; 
It reached the ship, it split the bay; 
The ship went down like lead. 

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, 550 

Which sky and ocean smote, 

Like one that hath been seven days drowned 

My body lay afloat; 

But swift as dreams myself I found 

Within the Pilot's boat. 555 



Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, 
The boat spun round and round; 
And all was still, save that the hill 
Was telling of the sound. 

I moved my lips — the Pilot shrieked. 
And fell down in a fit; 
The holy Hermit raised his eyes, 
And prayed where he did sit. 



560 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



71 



The ancient 
Mariner earn- 
estly entreateth 
the Hermit to 
shrieve him; 
and the penance 
of life falls on 
him. 



And ever and 
anon through- 
out his future 
life an agony 
constraineth 
him ^o travel 
from land to 
land, 



I took the oars ; the Pilot's boy, 

Who now doth crazy go, 565 

Laughed loud and long, and all the while 

His eyes went to and fro. 

'Ha ! ha !' quoth he, 'full plain I see 

The Devil knows how to row !' 

And now, all in my own countree, 570 

I stood on the firm land! 

The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, 

And scarcely he could stand. 

'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man !' 
The Hermit crossed his brow. 575 

'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say — 
What manner of man art thou?' 

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched 
With a woful agony. 

Which forced me to begin my tale; 580 

And then it left me free. 

Since then, at an uncertain hour. 

That agony returns ; 

And till my ghastly tale is told, 

This heart within me burns. 5^5 

I pass, like night, from land to land; 

I have strange power of speech; 

That moment that his face I see, 

I know the man that must hear me; 

To him my tale I teach. 590 

What loud uproar bursts from that door! 

The wedding-guests are there; 

But in the garden-bower the bride 

And bride-maids singing are; 

And hark the little vesper bell, 595 

Which biddeth me to prayer ! 

O Wedding-Guest ! this soul hath been 

Alone on a wide, wide sea; 

So lonely 't was that God himself 

Scarce seemed there to be. 600 



72 



ENGLISH POEMS 



O sweeter than the marriage-feast, 
'T is sweeter far to me, 
To walk together to the kirk 
With a goodly company! 

To walk together to the kirk. 

And all together pray, 

While each to his great Father bends, 

Old men, and babes, and loving friends. 

And youths and maidens gay ! 

and to teach Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell 
ample, love and To thee, thou Wedding-Guest : 
t'raTuhTngs He prayeth well who loveth well 

that God made Both man and bird and beast, 
and loveth. 

He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small; 
For the dear God Who loveth us. 
He made and loveth all." 

The Mariner, whose eye is bright, 
Whose beard with age is hoar, 
Is gone; and now the Wedding-Guest 
Turned from the bridegroom's door. 

He went like one that hath been stunned, 
And is of sense forlorn; 
A sadder and a wiser man 
He rose the morrow morn. 



60s 



610 



615 



620 



625 



1797-98. 



1798. 



FRANCE: AN ODE 

Ye clouds ! that far above me float and pause. 

Whose pathless march no mortal may control ! 

Ye ocean-waves ! that, wheresoe'er ye roll, 
Yield homage only to eternal laws ! 
Ye woods ! that listen to the night-birds singing, 

Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined. 
Save when your own imperious branches, swinging, 

Have made a solemn music of the wind ! 
Where, like a man beloved of God, 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 73 

Through glooms which never woodman trod, 10 

How oft, pursuing fancies holy, 
My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound. 

Inspired, beyond the guess of folly, 
By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound ! 

ye loud waves ! and O ye forests high ! 15 
And O ye clouds that far above me soared ! 

Thou rising sun! thou blue rejoicing sky! 
Yea, every thing that is and will be free ! 
Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be. 
With what deep worship I have still adored 20 

The spirit of divinest Liberty. 

When France in wrath her giant limbs upreared. 

And, with that oath which smote air, earth, and sea, 

Stamped her strong foot, and said she would be free. 
Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared! 25 

With what a joy my lofty gratulation 

Unawed I sang, amid a slavish band. 
And when, to whelm the disenchanted nation, 

Like fiends embattled by a wizard's wand. 

The monarchs marched in evil day, 30 

And Britain joined the dire array; 

Though dear her shores and circling ocean, 
Though many friendships, many youthful loves. 

Had swollen the patriot emotion. 
And flung a magic light o'er all her hills and groves, 35 

Yet still my voice, unaltered, sang defeat 

To all that braved the tyrant-quelling lance, 
And shame too long delayed and vain retreat ! 
For ne'er, O Liberty, with partial aim 

1 dimmed thy light or damped thy holy flame; 40 

But blessed the paeans of delivered France, 
And hung my head and wept at Britain's name. 

"And what," I said, "though Blasphemy's loud scream 

With that sweet music of deliverance strove ! 

Though all the fierce and drunken passions wove 45 

A dance more wild than e'er was maniac's dream ! 

Ye storms that round the dawning east assembled. 
The Sun was rising, though ye hid his light !" 

And when, to soothe my soul, that hoped and trembled. 



74 



ENGLISH POEMS 



The dissonance ceased, and all seemed calm and bright; 50 
When France her front deep-scarred and gory- 
Concealed with clustering wreaths of glory; 

When, insupportably advancing. 
Her arm made mockery of the warrior's ramp; 

While, timid looks of fury glancing, 55 

Domestic Treason, crushed beneath her fatal stamp, 
Writhed like a wounded dragon in his gore; 

Then I reproached my fears that would not flee: 
"And soon," I said, "shall Wisdom teach her lore 
In the low huts of them that toil and groan; 60 

And, conquering by her happiness alone. 

Shall France compel the nations to be free, 
Till Love and Joy look round, and call the earth their own." 

Forgive me. Freedom ! O forgive those dreams ! 

I hear thy voice, I hear thy loud lament, 65 

From bleak Helvetia's icy caverns sent ; 
I hear thy groans upon her blood-stained streams ! 

Heroes that for your peaceful country perished, 
And ye that, fleeing, spot your mountain-snows 

With bleeding wounds, forgive me that I cherished 70 

One thought that ever blessed your cruel foes ! 

To scatter rage and traitorous guilt 

Where Peace her jealous home had built; 
A patriot race to disinherit 
Of all that made their stormy wilds so dear; 75 

And with inexpiable spirit 
To taint the bloodless freedom of the mountaineer — 
O France, that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind. 

And patriot only in pernicious toils. 
Are these thy boasts, champion of human kind? 80 

To mix with kings in the low lust of sway. 
Yell in the hunt, and share the murderous prey; 
To insult the shrine of Liberty with spoils 
From freemen torn; to tempt and to betray? 

The sensual and the dark rebel in vain, 85 

Slaves by their own compulsion ! In mad game 
They burst their manacles, and wear the name 

Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain ! 
O Liberty! with profitless endeavour 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 75 

Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour; 90 

But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor ever 

Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power. 
Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee 
(Nor prayer nor boastful name delays thee), 
Alike from Priestcraft's harpy minions, 95 

And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves, 
Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions, 

The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves ! 

And there I felt thee! — on that sea-cliff's verge. 

Whose pines, scarce travelled by the breeze above, 100 

Had made one murmur with the distant surge ! 

Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare, 

And shot my being through earth, sea, and air, 
Possessing all things with intensest love, 

O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there. 105 

1798. 1798. 

KUBLA KHAN 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 

A stately pleasure-dome decree, 

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 

Through caverns measureless to man 

Down to a sunless sea. 5 

So twice five miles of fertile ground 
With walls and towers were girdled round; 
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills. 
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; 
And here were forests ancient as the hills, 10 

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. 

But O that deep romantic chasm which slanted 

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover ! 

A savage place ! as holy and enchanted 

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 15 

By woman wailing for her demon-lover ! 

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, 

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 

A mighty fountain momently was forced ; 

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst, 20 

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail. 



76 ENGLISH POEMS 



Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail ; 

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 

It flung up momently the sacred river. 

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion, 2$ 

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 

Then reached the caverns measureless to man, 

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean ; 

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 

Ancestral voices prophesying war ! 30 

The shadow of the dome of pleasure 

Floated midway on the waves ; 

Where was heard the mingled measure 

From the fountain and the caves. 
It was a miracle of rare device, 35 

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! 

A damsel with a dulcimer 

In a vision once I saw; 

It was an Abyssinian maid, 

And on her dulcimer she played, 40 

Singing of Mount Abora. 

Could I revive within me 

Her symphony and song. 

To such a deep delight 't would win me 
That with music loud and long 4^ 

I would build that dome in air, 
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! 
And all who heard should see them there, 
And all should cry, "Beware ! beware ! 
His flashing eyes, his floating hair! 50 

Weave a circle round him thrice. 

And close your eyes with holy dread. 

For he on honey-dew hath fed, 

And drunk the milk of Paradise." 
1797 or 1798. 1816. 

CHRISTABEL 

PART THE FIRST 

'T is the middle of night by the castle clock, 
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock: 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 77 

Tu — whit ! Tu — whoo ! 

And hark, again ! the crowing cock, 

How drowsily it crew. S 

Sir Leoline, the baron rich, 
Hath a toothless mastifif, which 
From her kennel beneath the rock 
Maketh answer to the clock, 

Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; 10 

Ever and aye, by shine and shower. 
Sixteen short howls, not over loud : 
Some say she sees my lady's shroud. 

Is the night chilly and dark? 
The night is chilly, but not dark; IS 

The thin gray cloud is spread on high. 
It covers but not hides the sky; 
The Moon is behind, and at the full. 
And yet she looks both small and dull. 
The night is chill, the cloud is gray; 30 

'T is a month before the month of May, 
And the spring comes slowly up this way. 

The lovely lady, Christabel, 
Whom her father loves so well, 

What makes her in the wood so late, 25 

A furlong from the castle gate? 
She had dreams all yesternight 
Of her own betrothed knight ; 
And she in the midnight wood will pray 
For the weal of her lover that 's far away. 30 

She stole along, she nothing spoke. 
The sighs she heaved were soft and low; 
And naught was green upon the oak 
But moss and rarest mistletoe. 

She kneels beneath the huge oak tree 35 

And in silence prayeth she. 

The lady sprang up suddenly. 
The lovely lady, Christabel! 
It moaned as near, as near can be. 
But what it is she cannot tell. — 40 

On the other side it seems to be, 
Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree. 

The night is chill; the forest bare; 



78 ENGLISH POEMS 



Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? 

There is not wind enough in the air 45 

To move away the ringlet curl 

From the lovely lady's cheek; 

There is not wind enough to twirl 

The one red leaf, the last of its clan, 

That dances as often as dance it can, 50 

Hanging so light, and hanging so high. 

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. 

Hush, beating heart of Christabel! 
Jesu, Maria, shield her well ! 

She folded her arms beneath her cloak, 55 

And stole to the other side of the oak. 

What sees she there? 

There she sees a damsel bright, 
Drest in a silken robe of white, 

That shadowy in the moonlight shone ; 60 

The neck that made that white robe wan, 
Her stately neck and arms were bare; 
Her blue-veined feet unsandalled were, 
And wildly glittered here and there 
The gems entangled in her hair. 65 

I guess 't was frightful there to see 
A lady so richly clad as she — 
Beautiful exceedingly ! 
"Mary Mother, save me now !" 
Said Christabel ; "and who art thou ?" 70 

The lady strange made answer meet. 
And her voice was faint and sweet: 
"Have pity on my sore distress, 
I scarce can speak for weariness : 

Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear !" 75 

Said Christabel, "How camest thou here?" 
And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet, 
Did thus pursue her answer meet : — 

"My sire is of a noble line. 
And my name is Geraldine. 80 

Five warriors seized me yestermorn. 
Me, even me, a maid forlorn ; 
They choked my cries with force and fright. 
And tied me on a palfrey white. 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 79 

The palfrey was as fleet as wind, 85 

And they rode furiously behind. 
They spurred amain, their steeds were white; 
And once we crossed the shade of night. 
As sure as Heaven shall rescue me, 
I have no thought what men they be ; 90 

Nor do I know how long it is 
(For I have lain entranced, I wis) 
Since one, the tallest of the five. 
Took me from the palfrey's back, 

A weary woman, scarce alive. 95 

Some muttered words his comrades spoke: 
He placed me underneath this oak; 
He swore they would return with haste; 
Whither they went I cannot tell — 

I thought I heard, some minutes past, lOO 

Sounds as of a castle bell. 
Stretch forth thy hand," — ^thus ended she — 
"And help a wretched maid to flee." 

Then Christabel stretched forth her hand, 
And comforted fair Geraldine : 105 

"Oh well, bright dame, may you command 
The service of Sir Leoline; 
And gladly our stout chivalry 
Will he send forth, and friends withal, 
To guide and guard you safe and free no 

Home to your noble father's hall." 

She rose; and forth with steps they passed 
That strove to be, and were not, fast. 
Her gracious stars the lady blest, 

And thus spake on sweet Christabel: 115 

"All our household are at rest. 
The hall as silent as the cell ; 
Sir Leoline is weak in health. 
And may not well awakened be; 

But we will move as if in stealth, 120 

And I beseech your courtesy, 
This night, to share your couch with me." 

They crossed the moat, and Christabel 
Took the key that fitted well ; 
A little door she opened straight, 125 



8o ENGLISH POEMS 



All in the middle of the gate, 

The gate that was ironed within and without, 

Where an army in battle array had marched out. 

The lady sank, belike through pain, 

And Christabel with might and main 130 

Lifted her up, a weary weight, 

Over the threshold of the gate; 

Then the lady rose again, 

And moved, as she were not in pain. 

So free from danger, free from fear, 135 

They crossed the court; right glad they were. 

And Christabel devoutly cried 

To the lady by her side, 
"Praise we the Virgin all divine, 

Who hath rescued thee from thy distress !" 140 

"Alas, alas !" said Geraldine, 
"I cannot speak for weariness." 

So, free from danger, free from fear, ^ 

They crossed the court; right glad they were. 

Outside her kennel, the mastiff old 145 

Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold. 

The mastiff old did not awake. 

Yet she an angry moan did make! 

And what can ail the mastiff bitch? 

Never till now she uttered yell 150 

Beneath the eye of Christabel. 

Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch; 

For what can ail the mastiff bitch? 

They passed the hall, that echoes still. 

Pass as lightly as you will ! 155 

The brands were flat, the brands were dying, 

Amid their own white ashes lying; 

But when the lady passed, there came 

A tongue of light, a fit of flame ; 

And Christabel saw the lady's eye, 160 

And nothing else saw she thereby, 

Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall, 

Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall. 
"O, softly tread," said Christabel, 

"My father seldom sleepeth well." 165 

Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare; 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 



And, jealous of the listening air, 

They steal their way from stair to stair, 

Now in glimmer, and now in gloom, 

And now they pass the Baron's room, 170 

As still as death, with stifled breath ! 

And now have reached her chamber door; 

And now doth Geraldine press down 

The rushes of the chamber floor. 

The moon shines dim in the open air, 175 

And not a moonbeam enters here. 
But they without its light can see 
The chamber carved so curiously, 
Carved with figures strange and sweet, 
All made out of the carver's brain, 180 

For a lady's chamber meet : 
The lamp with twofold silver chain 
Is fastened to an angel's feet. 

The silver lamp burns dead and dim; 
But Christabel the lamp will trim. 185 

She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright. 
And left it swinging to and fro, 
While Geraldine, in wretched plight, 
Sank down upon the floor below. 

"O weary lady, Geraldine, 190 

I pray you, drink this cordial wine ! 
It is a wine of virtuous powers ; 
My mother made it of wild flowers." 

"And will your mother pity me, 
Who am a maiden most forlorn?" 195 

Christabel answered: "Woe is me! 
She died the hour that I was born. 
I have heard the gray-haired friar tell 
How on her death-bed she did say 

That she should hear the castle bell 200 

Strike twelve upon my wedding day. 

mother dear, that thou wert here!" 
"I would," said Geraldine, "she were!" 

But soon, with altered voice, said she, 
"Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine! 205 

1 have power to bid thee flee." 
Alas ! what ails poor Geraldine ? 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Why stares she with unsettled eye? 

Can she the bodiless dead espy? 

And why with hollow voice cries she, 210 

"Off, woman, off! this hour is mine- 
Though thou her guardian spirit be, 

Off, woman, off ! 't is given to me." 

Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side, 

And raised to heaven her eyes so blue. 315 

"Alas !" said she, "this ghastly ride — 

Dear lady ! it hath wildered you !" 

The lady wiped her moist cold brow. 

And faintly said, " 'T is over now !" 

Again the wild-flower wine she drank : 220 

Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright, 

And from the floor whereon she sank, 

The lofty lady stood upright; 

She was most beautiful to see, 

Like a lady of a far countree. 32$ 

And thus the lofty lady spake : 
"All they who live in the upper sky 

Do love you, holy Christabel ! 

And you love them, and for their sake 

And for the good which me befell, 230 

Even I in my degree will try. 

Fair maiden, to requite you well. 

But now unrobe yourself; for I 

Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie." 

Quoth Christabel, "So let it be!" 235 

And as the lady bade, did she. 

Her gentle limbs did she undress, 

And lay down in her loveliness. 

But through her brain of weal and woe 

So many thoughts moved to and fro 240 

That vain it were her lids to close; 

So half-way from the bed she rose. 

And on her elbow did recline 

To look at the lady Geraldine. 

Beneath the lamp the lady bowed, 245 

And slowly rolled her eyes around; 

Then, drawing in her breath aloud, 

Like one that shuddered, she unbound 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 83 

The cincture from beneath her breast: 

Her silken robe and inner vest 250 

Dropt to her feet, and, full in view. 

Behold! her bosom and half her side — 

A sight to dream of, not to tell ! 

Oh shield her ! shield sweet Christabel ! 

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs; 255 

Ah, what a stricken look was hers ! 
Deep from within she seems half-way 
To lift some weight with sick assay. 
And eyes the maid and seeks delay ; 

Then suddenly, as one defied, 260 

Collects herself in scorn and pride, 
And lay down by the maiden's side! 
And in her arms the maid she took. 

Ah well-a-day ! 
And with low voice and doleful look 265 

These words did say : 
"In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell, 
Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel! 
Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow, 
This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow; 270 

But vainly thou warrest, 
For this is alone in 

Thy power to declare, 
That in the dim forest 

Thou heard'st a low moaning, 275 

And found'st a bright lady, surpassingly fair, 
And didst bring her home with thee in love and in charity, 
To shield her and shelter her from the damp air." 

THE CONCLUSION TO PART THE FIRST 

It was a lovely sight to see 

The lady Christabel, when she 280 

Was praying at the old oak tree. 

Amid the jagged shadows 

Of mossy leafless boughs. 

Kneeling in the moonlight. 

To make her gentle vows; 285 

Her slender palms together prest, 
Heaving sometimes on her breast; 



84 ENGLISH POEMS 



Her face resigned to bliss or bale — 

Her face, O call it fair, not pale! 

And both blue eyes more bright than clear, 290 

Each about to have a tear. 

With open eyes (ah, woe is me!) 
Asleep, and dreaming fearfully. 
Fearfully dreaming, yet, I wis. 

Dreaming that alone which is — 295 

O sorrow and shame! Can this be she. 
The lady, who knelt at the old oak tree? 
And lo ! the worker of these harms. 
That holds the maiden in her arms, 
Seems to slumber still and mild, 300 

As a mother with her child. 

A star hath set, a star hath risen, 
O Geraldine, since arms of thine 
Have been the lovely lady's prison. 
O Geraldine, one hour was thine — 305 

Thou'st had thy will! By taim and rill. 
The night-birds all that hour were still. 
But now they are jubilant anew. 
From cliff and tower : tu — whoo ! tu — whoo ! 
Tu — whoo! tu — whoo! from wood and fell! 310 

And see! the lady Christabel 
Gathers herself from out her trance; 
Her limbs relax, her countenance 
Grows sad and soft; the smooth thin lids 
Close o'er her eyes ; and tears she sheds — 315 

Large tears that leave the lashes bright! 
And oft the while she seems to smile 
As infants at a sudden light. 

Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weeft 
Like a youthful hermitess, 320 

Beauteous in a wilderness. 
Who, praying always, prays in sleep. 
And if she move unquietly, 
Perchance 't is but the blood so free, 
Comes back and tingles in her feet. 325 

No doubt she hath a vision sweet. 
What if her guardian spirit 'twere? 
What if she knew her mother near? 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 85 



But this she knows, in joys and woes, 
That saints will aid if men will call; ZZ^ 

For the blue sky bends over all ! 
1797. 

PART THE SECOND 

"Each matin bell," the Baron saith, 
"Knells us back to a world of death." 
These words Sir Leoline first said. 
When he rose and found his lady dead ; 335 

These words Sir Leoline will say. 
Many a morn to his dying day ! 

And hence the custom and law began, 
That still at dawn the sacristan. 

Who duly pulls the heavy bell, 340 

Five-and-forty beads must tell 
Between each stroke — a warning knell, 
Which not a soul can choose but hear 
From Bratha-Head to Windermere. 

Saith Bracy the bard, "So let it knell! 345 

And let the drowsy sacristan 
Still count as slowly as he can! 
There is no lack of such, I ween, 
As well fill up the space between. 

In Langdale Pike and Witch's Lair, 35° 

And Dungeon-ghyll so foully rent. 
With ropes of rock and bells of air 
Three sinful sextons' ghosts are pent. 
Who all give back, one after t' other. 
The death-note to their living brother; 355 

And oft too, by the knell offended, 
Just as their one, two, three, is ended, 
The Devil mocks the doleful tale 
With a merry peal from Borrowdale." 

The air is still! through mist and cloud 360 

That merry peal comes ringing loud; 
And Geraldine shakes off her dread, 
And rises lightly from the bed. 
Puts on her silken vestments white. 
And tricks her hair in lovely plight, 365 

And, nothing doubting of her spell. 



86 ENGLISH POEMS 



Awakens the lady Christabel: 
"Sleep you, sweet lady Christabel? 
I trust that you have rested well." 

And Christabel awoke and spied 370 

The same who lay down by her side — 
O rather say, the same whom she 
Raised up beneath the old oak tree! 
Nay, fairer yet, and yet more fair! 

For she belike hath drunken deep 375 

Of all the blessedness of sleep. 
And while she spake, her looks, her air, 
Such gentle thankfulness declare. 
That (so it seemed) her girded vests 
Grew tight beneath her heaving breasts. 380 

"Sure I have sinned!" said Christabel; 
"Now Heaven be praised if all be well!" 
And in low faltering tones, yet sweet, 
Did she the lofty lady greet 

With such perplexity of mind 385 

As dreams too lively leave behind. 

So quickly she rose, and quickly arrayed 
Her maiden limbs, and, having prayed 
That He Who on the cross did groan 
Might wash away her sins unknown, 390 

She forthwith led fair Geraldine 
To meet her sire. Sir Leoline. 

The lovely maid and the lady tall 
Are pacing both into the hall. 

And, pacing on through page and groom, 395 

Enter the Baron's presence-room. 

The Baron rose, and while he prest 
His gentle daughter to his breast. 
With cheerful wonder in his eyes 

The lady Geraldine espies, 400 

And gave such welcome to the same 
As might beseem so bright a dame. 

But when he heard the lady's tale, 
And when she told her father's name. 
Why waxed Sir Leoline so pale, 405 

Murmuring o'er the name again. 
Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine? 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 87 

Alas ! they had been friends in youth ; 
But whispering tongues can poison truth, 
And constancy lives in realms above, 410 

And life is thorny, and youth is vain, 
And to be w^roth with one we love 
Doth work like madness in the brain. 
And thus it chanced, as I divine, 

With Roland and Sir Leoline. 415 

Each spake words of high disdain 
And insult to his heart's best brother: 
They parted — ne'er to meet again ! 
But never either found another 

To free the hollow heart from paining. 420 

They stood aloof, the scars remaining, 
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; 
A dreary sea now flows between : 
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder. 
Shall wholly do away, I ween, 423 

The marks of that which once hath been. 

Sir Leoline, a moment's space, 
Stood gazing on the damsel's face; 
And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine 
Came back upon his heart again. 430 

Oh then the Baron forgot his age; 
His noble heart swelled high with rage; 
He swore by the wounds in Jesu's side 
He would proclaim it far and wide. 
With trump and solemn heraldry, 435 

That they who thus had wronged the dame 
Were base as spotted infamy! 
"And if they dare deny the same. 
My herald shall appoint a week. 

And let the recreant traitors seek 440 

My tourney court — that there and then 
I may dislodge their reptile souls 
From the bodies and forms of men !" 
He spake; his eye in lightning rolls. 
For the lady was ruthlessly seized, and he kenned 445 
In the beautiful lady the child of his friend. 

And now the tears were on his face, 
And fondly in his arms he took 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Fair Geraldine, who met the embrace, 

Prolonging it with joyous look. 450 

Which when she viewed, a vision fell 

Upon the soul of Christabel, 

The vision of fear, the touch and pain ! 

She shrunk and shuddered, and saw again 

(Ah, woe is me ! was it for thee, 455 

Thou gentle maid, such sights to see?). 

Again she saw that bosom old. 

Again she felt that bosom cold. 

And drew in her breath with a hissing sound; 

Whereat the Knight turned wildly round, 460 

And nothing saw but his own sweet maid 

With eyes upraised, as one that prayed. 
The touch, the sight, had passed away; 

And in its stead that vision blest 

Which comforted her after-rest, 465 

While in the lady's arms she lay. 

Had put a rapture in her breast, 

And on her lips and o'er her eyes 

Spread smiles like light ! 

With new surprise, 
"What ails then my beloved child?" 470 

The Baron said. His daughter mild 

Made answer, "All will yet be well !" 

I ween she had no power to tell 

Aught else, so mighty was the spell. 

Yet he who saw this Geraldine 475 

Had deemed her sure a thing divine. 

Such sorrow with such grace she blended. 

As if she feared she had offended 

Sweet Christabel, that gentle maid ! 

And with such lowly tones she prayed 480 

She might be sent without delay 

Home to her father's mansion. 

"Nay ! 

Nay, by my soul !" said Leoline. 
"Ho! Bracy, the bard, the charge be thine ! 

Go thou, with music sweet and loud, 485 

And take two steeds with trappings proud, 

,<nd take the youth whom thou lov'st best. 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 89 

To bear thy harp and learn thy song, 
And clothe you both in solemn vest, 

And over the mountains haste along, 490 

Lest wandering folk that are abroad 

Detain you on the valley road. 
"And when he has crossed the Irthing flood. 

My merry bard ! he hastes, he hastes 

Up Knorren Moor, through Halegarth Wood, 495 

And reaches soon that castle good 

Which stands and threatens Scotland's wastes. 

Bard Bracy ! bard Bracy ! your horses are fleet. 

Ye must ride up the hall, your music so sweet 

More loud than your horses' echoing feet ! 500 

And loud and loud to Lord Roland call, 
'Thy daughter is safe in Langdale hall ! 

Thy beautiful daughter is safe and free — 

Sir Leoline greets thee thus through me. 

He bids thee come without delay 505 

With all thy numerous array, 

And take thy lovely daughter home; 

And he will meet thee on the way 

With all his numerous array 

White with their panting palfreys' foam !* 510 

And by mine honor ! I will say 

That I repent me of the day 

When I spake words of fierce disdain 

To Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine ! 

For since that evil hour hath flown, 515 

Many a summer's sun hath shone; 

Yet ne'er found I a friend again 

Like Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine." 
The lady fell, and clasped his knees. 

Her face upraised, her eyes o'erflowing ; 520 

And Bracy replied, with faltering voice, 

His gracious hail on all bestowing: 
"Thy words, thou sire of Christabel, 

Are sweeter than my harp can tell. 

Yet might I gain a boon of thee, 525 

This day my journey should not be; 

So strange a dream hath come to me 

That I had vowed with music loud 



9° 



ENGLISH POEMS 



To clear yon wood from thing unblest, 

Warned by a vision in my rest. 530 

For in my sleep I saw that dove, 

That gentle bird whom thou dost love, 

And call'st by thy own daughter's name, 

Sir Leoline ! I saw the same, 

Fluttering, and uttering fearful moan, 535 

Among the green herbs in the forest alone. 

Which when I saw and when I heard, 

I wondered what might ail the bird; 

For nothing near it could I see, 

Save the grass and green herbs underneath the 

old tree. 54° 

"And in my dream methought I went 
To search out what might there be found, 
And what the sweet bird's trouble meant. 
That thus lay fluttering on the ground. 
I went and peered, and could descry - 545 

No cause for her distressful cry; 
But yet for her dear lady's sake 
I stooped, methought, the dove to take. 
When lo ! I saw a bright green snake 
Coiled round its wings and neck! 550 

Green as the herbs on which it couched. 
Close by the dove's its head it crouched; 
And with the dove it heaves and stirs. 
Swelling its neck as she swelled hers ! 
I woke; it was the midnight hour, 555 

The clock was echoing in the tower; 
But though my slumber was gone by, 
■ This dream it would not pass away — 
It seems to live upon my eye ! 

And thence I vowed this self-same day 560 

With music strong and saintly song 
To wander through the forest bare. 
Lest aught unholy loiter there." 

Thus Bracy said: the Baron, the while. 
Half -listening heard him with a smile; 565 

Then turned to Lady Geraldine, 
His eyes made up of wonder and love. 
And said in courtly accents fine, 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 91 

"Sweet maid, Lord Roland's beauteous dove, 
With arms more strong than harp or song, 570 

Thy sire and I will crush the snake !" 
He kissed her forehead as he spake, 
And Geraldine in maiden wise 
Casting down her large bright eyes, 

With blushing cheek and courtesy fine, 575 

She turned her from Sir Leoline, 
Softly gathering up her train, 
That o'er her right arm fell again; 
And folded her arms across her chest, 
And couched her head upon her breast, 580 

And looked askance at Christabel — 
Jesu, Maria, shield her well ! 

A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy: 
And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head, 
Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye; 585 

And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread, 
At Christabel she looked askance ! — 
One moment — and the sight was fled ! 
But Christabel, in dizzy trance 

Stumbling on the unsteady ground, 590 

Shuddered aloud, with a hissing sound; 
And Geraldine again turned round. 
And like a thing that sought relief. 
Full of wonder and full of grief. 

She rolled her large bright eyes divine 595 

Wildly on Sir Leoline. 

The maid, alas ! her thoughts are gone ; 
She nothing sees — no sight but one! 
The maid, devoid of guile and sin, 

I know not how, in fearful wise 600 

So deeply had she drunken in 
That look, those shrunken serpent eyes. 
That all her features were resigned 
To this sole image in her mind. 

And passively did imitate 605 

That look of dull and teacherous hate! 
And thus she stood in dizzy trance. 
Still picturing that look askance 
With forced unconscious sympathy, 



92 ENGLISH POEMS 



Full before her father's view — 6io 

As far as such a look could be 
In eyes so innocent and blue. 

And when the trance was o'er, the maid 
Paused awhile, and inly prayed; 

Then, falling at the Baron's feet, 615 

"By my mother's soul do I entreat 
That thou this woman send away !" 
She said; and more she could not say, 
For what she knew she could not tell, 
O'ermastered by the mighty spell. 620 

Why is thy cheek so wan and wild. 
Sir Leoline? Thy only child 
Lies at thy feet, thy joy, thy pride. 
So fair, so innocent, so mild; 

The same for whom thy lady died! 625 

O, by the pangs of her dear mother 
Think thou no evil of thy child ! 
For her, and thee, and for no other. 
She prayed the moment ere she died; 
Prayed that the babe for whom she died 630 

Might prove her dear lord's joy and pride. 
That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled, 

Sir Leoline ! 
And wouldst thou wrong thy only child. 

Her child and thine? 635 

Within the Baron's heart and brain 
If thoughts like these had any share, 
They only swelled his rage and pain, 
And did but work confusion there. 

His heart was cleft with pain and rage, 640 

His cheeks they quivered, his eyes were wild. 
Dishonoured thus in his old age, 
Dishonoured by his only child. 
And all his hospitality 

To the insulted daughter of his friend 645 

By more than woman's jealousy 
Brought thus to a disgraceful end, 
He rolled his eye with stern regard 
Upon the gentle minstrel bard. 
And said in tones abrupt, austere, 650 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 93 

"Why, Bracy! dost thou loiter here? 
I bade thee hence !" The bard obeyed, 
And, turning from his own sweet maid, 
The aged knight. Sir Leoline, 

Led forth the lady Geraldine! 655 

1800. 

THE CONCLUSION TO PART THE SECOND 

A little child, a limber elf, 
Singing, dancing to itself, 
A fairy thing with red round cheeks, 
That always finds, and never seeks. 

Makes such a vision to the sight 660 

As fills a father's eyes with light; 
And pleasures flow in so thick and fast 
Upon his heart, that he at last 
Must needs express his love's excess 
With words of unmeant bitterness. 665 

Perhaps 't is pretty to force together. 
Thoughts so all unlike each other. 
To mutter and mock a broken charm, 
To dally with wrong that does no harm. 
Perhaps 't is tender too and pretty 670 

At each wild word to feel within 
A sweet recoil of love and pity. 
And what if in a world of sin 
(O sorrow and shame should this be true!) 
Such giddiness of heart and brain 675 

Comes seldom save from rage and pain. 
So talks as it 's most used to do. 
l8oif 1816. 

INSCRIPTION FOR A FOUNTAIN ON A HEATH 

This sycamore, oft musical with bees, 

Such tents the patriarchs loved. O long unharmed 

May all its aged boughs o'er-canopy 

The small round basin, which this jutting stone 

Keeps pure from falling leaves. Long may the spring, 5 

Quietly as a sleeping infant's breath. 

Send up cold waters to the traveller 



94 



ENGLISH POEMS 



With soft and even pulse; nor ever cease 

Yon tiny cone of sand its soundless dance, 

Which at the bottom, like a fairy's page, lo 

As merry and no taller, dances still, 

Nor wrinkles the smooth surface of the fount. 

Here twilight is, and coolness; here is moss, 

A soft seat, and a deep and ample shade. 

Thou may'st toil far and find no second tree. 15 

Drink, pilgrim, here! Here rest! And if thy heart 

Be innocent, here too shalt thou refresh 

Thy spirit, listening to some gentle sound, 

Or passing gale or hum of murmuring bees. 

1802. 

WORK WITHOUT HOPE 

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair — 

The bees are stirring — ^birds are on the wing — 

And Winter, slumbering in the open air. 

Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! 

And I the while, the sole unbusy thing, 5 

Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. 

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow. 
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow. 
Bloom, O ye amaranths ! bloom for whom ye may ; 
For me ye bloom not ! Glide, rich streams, away ! 10 

With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll. 
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul? 
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, 
And Hope without an object cannot live. 
1827. 1827. 



ROBERT SOUTHEY 

THE HOLLY TREE 

O reader, hast thou ever stood to see 

The holly tree? 
The eye that contemplates it well perceives 

Its glossy leaves 
Ordered by an intelligence so wise 
As might confound the atheist's sophistries. 



ROBERT SOUTHEY 95 



Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen 

Wrinkled and keen ; 
No grazing cattle through their prickly round 

Can reach to wound; 10 

But as they grow where nothing is to fear, 
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear. 

I love to view these things with curious eyes, 

And moralize; 
And in this wisdom of the holly tree 15 

Can emblems see 
Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme. 
One which may profit in the after time. 

Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear 

Harsh and austere, 20 

To those who on my leisure would intrude 
Reserved and rude. 

Gentle at home amid my friends I 'd be. 

Like the high leaves upon the holly tree. 

And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know, 25 

Some harshness show, 
All vain asperities I day by day 

Would wear away. 
Till the smooth temper of my age should be 
Like the high leaves upon the holly tree. 30 

And as when all the summer trees are seen 

So bright and green, 
The holly leaves a sober hue display 

Less bright than they; 
But when the bare and wintry woods we see, 35 

What then so cheerful as the holly tree? 

So serious should my youth appear among 

The thoughtless throng; 
So would I seem amid the young and gay 

More grave than they; 40 

That in my age as cheerful I might be 
As the green winter of the holly tree. 

1798. 1799- 



96 ENGLISH POEMS 



BISHOP BRUNO 
Bishop Bruno awoke in the dead midnight, 
And he heard his heart beat loud with affright; 
He dreamt he had rung the palace bell, 
And the sound it gave was his passing knell. 

Bishop Bruno smiled at his fears so vain, 5 

He turned to sleep and he dreamt again : — 

He rang at the palace gate once more, 

And Death was the porter that opened the door. 

He started up at the fearful dream. 

And he heard at his window the screech-owl scream; 10 

Bishop Bruno slept no more that night, — 

Oh, glad was he when he saw the day-light ! 

Now he goes forth in proud array. 

For he with the Emperor dines to-day; 

There was not a baron in Germany IS 

That went with a nobler train than he. 

Before and behind his soldiers ride. 

The people thronged to see their pride; 

They bowed the head, and the knee they bent, 

But nobody blest him as he went. 20 

So he went on stately and proud. 
When he heard a voice that cried aloud, 
"Ho ! ho ! Bishop Bruno ! you travel with glee ; 
But I would have you know, you travel to me!" 

Behind and before and on either side, 25 

He looked, but nobody he espied; 

And the Bishop at that grew cold with fear, 

For he heard the words distinct and clear. 

And when he rang at the palace bell. 

He almost expected to hear his knell; 30 

And when the porter turned the key, 

He almost expected Death to see. 

But soon the Bishop recovered his glee, 

For the Emperor welcomed him royally; 

And now the tables were spread, and there 35 

Were choicest wines and dainty fare. 



ROBERT SOUTH EY 97 



And now the Bishop had blest the meat, 
When a voice was heard as he sat in his seat: 
"With the Emperor now you are dining with glee; 
But know, Bishop Bruno ! you sup with me !" 40 

The Bishop then grew pale with affright, 

And suddenly lost his appetite; 

All the wine and dainty cheer 

Could not comfort his heart that was sick with fear. 

But by little and little recovered he, 45 

For the wine went flowing merrily. 

Till at length he forgot his former dread. 

And his cheeks again grew rosy red. 

When he sat down to the royal fare, 

Bishop Bruno was the saddest man there; 50 

But when the masquers entered the hall, 

He was the merriest man of all. 

Then from amid the masquers' crowd 
There went a voice hollow and loud : 
"You have passed the day, Bishop Bruno, in glee; 55 

But you must pass the night with me!" 

His cheek grows pale, and his eye-balls glare, 

And stiff round his tonsure bristled his hair; 

With that there came one from the masquers' band, 

And took the Bishop by the hand. 60 

The bony hand suspended his breath. 
His marrow grew cold at the touch of Death; 
On saints in vain he attempted to call — 
Bishop Bruno fell dead in the palace hall. 

1798. 1799- 



FROM 

THALABA THE DESTROYER 

So on a violet bank 
The Arabian maid laid down, 
Her soft cheek pillowed upon moss and flowers. 
She lay in silent prayer, 



98 . ENGLISH POEMS 



Till prayer had tranquillized her fears, S 

And sleep fell on her. By her side 

Silent sate Thalaba, 

And gazed upon the maid, 

And, as he gazed, drew in 

New courage and intenser faith, lo 

And waited calmly for the eventful day. 

Loud sung the lark; the awakened maid 
Beheld him twinkling in the morning light. 
And wished for wings and liberty like his. 

The flush of fear inflamed her cheek, 15 

But Thalaba was calm of soul, 

Collected for the work. 

He pondered in his mind 

How from Lobaba's breast 

His blunted arrow fell. 20 

Aloadin too might wear 

Spell perchance of equal power 

To blunt the weapon's edge. 

Beside the river-brink 

Grew a young poplar, whose unsteady leaves 25 

Varying their verdure to the gale, 

With silver glitter caught 

His meditating eye. 

Then to Oneiza turned the youth, 

And gave his father's bow, 30 

And o'er her shoulders slung 

The quiver arrow-stored. 

"Me other weapon suits," said he; 

"Bear thou the" bow : dear maid. 

The days return upon me, when these shafts, 35 

True to thy guidance, from the lofty palm 

Brought down its cluster, and thy gladdened eye, 

Exulting, turned to seek the voice of praise. 

O, yet again, Oneiza, we shall share 

Our desert-joys !" So saying, to the bank 40 

He moved, and stooping low. 

With double grasp, hand below hand, he clenched. 

And from its watery soil 

Uptore the poplar trunk. 



ROBERT SOUTH EY 99 



Then off he shook the clotted earth, 45 

And broke away the head 
And boughs and lesser roots; 
And, lifting it aloft, 
Wielded with able sway the massy club. 
"Now for this child of hell !" quoth Thalaba ; 50 

"Belike he shall exchange today 
His dainty Paradise 
For other dwelling, and its cups of joy 
For the unallayable bitterness 
Of Zaccoum's fruit accursed." 55 

With that the Arabian youth and maid 
Toward the centre of the garden went. 
It chanced that Aloadin had convoked 
The garden-habitants. 
And with the assembled throng 60 

Oneiza mingled, and the Appointed Youth. 

Unmarked they mingled; or if one 

With busier finger to his neighbour notes 

The quivered maid, "Haply," he says, 

"Some daughter of the Homerites, 65 

Or one who yet remembers with delight 

Her native tents of Himiar." "Nay!" rejoins 

His comrade, "a love-pageant ! for the man 

Mimics with that fierce eye and knotty club 

Some savage lion-tamer; she forsooth 70 

Must play the heroine of the years of old !" 

Radiant with gems upon his throne of gold 
Sate Aloadin ; o'er the Sorcerer's head 
Hovered a bird, and in the fragrant air 

Waved his wide winnowing wings, 75 

A living canopy. 

Large as the hairy cassowar 

Was that o'ershadowing bird; 

So huge his talons, in their grasp 

The eagle would have hung a helpless prey. 80 

His beak was iron, and his plumes 

Glittered like burnished gold, 

And his eyes glowed as though an inward fire 

Shone through a diamond orb. 



lOO ENGLISH POEMS 



The blinded multitude 85 

Adored the Sorcerer, 
And bent the knee before him, 
And shouted forth his praise : 
"Mighty art thou, the bestower of joy, 

The Lord of Paradise !" 90 

Then Aloadin rose and waved his hand, 
And they stood mute and moveless 
In idolizing awe. 

"Children of Earth," he said, 
"Whom I have guided here 95 

By easier passage than the gate of Death, 
The infidel Sultan, to whose lands 
My mountains stretch their roots. 
Blasphemes and threatens me. 
Strong are his armies, many are his guards, lOO 

Yet may a dagger find him. 
Children of Earth, I tempt ye not 
With the vain promise of a bliss unseen 
With tales of a hereafter heaven. 
Whence never traveller hath returned! 105 

Have ye not tasted of the cup of joy 

That in these groves of happiness 

Forever over-mantling tempts 

The ever-thirsty lip? 

Who is there here that by a deed no 

Of danger will deserve 
The eternal joys of actual Paradise?" 

"I!" Thalaba exclaimed; 
And, springing forward, on the Sorcerer's head 

He dashed his knotty club. 115 

Aloadin fell not, though his skull 

Was shattered by the blow, 

For by some talisman 

His miserable life imprisoned still 

Dwelt in the body. The astonished crowd 120 

Stand motionless with fear. 

Expecting to behold 



ROBERT SOU THEY loi 



Immediate vengeance from the wrath of Heaven. 
And lo ! the bird — the monster bird — 

Soars up — then pounces down 125 

To seize on Thalaba ! 

Now, Oneiza, bend the bow, 

Now draw the arrow home ! — 

True fled the arrow from Oneiza's hand; 

It pierced the monster bird, 130 

It broke the talisman; — 

Then darkness covered all; — 

Earth shook, heaven thundered, and amid the yells 

Of evil spirits perished 

The Paradise of Sin. 13S 

At last the earth was still ; 

The yelling of the demons ceased; 

Opening the wreck and ruin to their sight. 

The darkness rolled away. Alone in life. 

Amid the desolation and the dead, 140 

Stood the Destroyer and the Arabian maid. 
They looked around : the rocks were rent, 

The path was open, late by magic closed. 
Awe-struck and ailent down the stony glen 

They wound their thoughtful way. 145 

1800. 1801. 



MY DAYS AMONG THE DEAD ARE PAST 

My days among the dead are past : 

Around me I behold. 
Where'er these casual eyes are cast. 

The mighty minds of old ; 
My never-failing friends are they. 
With whom I converse day by day. 

With them I take delight in weal. 

And seek relief in woe; 
And while I understand and feel 

How much to them I owe, 
My cheeks have often been bedewed 
With tears of thoughtful gratitude. 



I02 ENGLISH POEMS 



My thoughts are with the dead : with them 

I live in long-past years; 
Their virtues love, their faults condemn, 15 

Partake their hopes and fears. 
And from their lessons seek and find 
Instruction with an humble mind. 

My hopes are with the dead; anon 

My place with them will be, 20 

And I with them shall travel on 

Through all Futurity, 
Yet leaving here a name, I trust. 
That will not perish in the dust. 
j8i8. 1823. 



THOMAS CAMPBELL 

FROM 

THE PLEASURES OF HOPE 

At summer eve, when heaven's ethereal bow 

Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below, 

Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye, 

Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky? 

Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear 5 

More sweet than all the landscape smiling near? 

'T is distance lends enchantment to the view, 

And robes the mountain in its azure hue. 

Thus, with delight, we linger to survey 

The promised joys of life's unmeasured way; 10 

Thus, from afar, each dim-discovered scene 

More pleasing seems than all the past hath been. 

And every form, that Fancy can repair 

From dark oblivion, glows divinely there. 

What potent spirit guides the raptured eye 15 

To pierce the shades of dim futurity? 
Can Wisdom lend, with all her heavenly power, 
The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour? 
Ah, no ! she darkly sees the fate of man — 
Her dim horizon bounded to a span; 20 



THOMAS CAMPBELL 



103 



Or, if she hold an image to the view, 

'T is Nature pictured too severely true. 

With thee, sweet Hope ! resides the heavenly light 

That pours remotest rapture on the sight ; 

Thine is the charm of life's bewildered way, 25 

That calls each slumbering passion into play. 

Waked by thy touch, I see the sister-band, 

On tiptoe watching, start at thy command. 

And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer. 

To Pleasure's path, or Glory's bright career. 30 

Primeval Hope, the Aonian Muses say, 
When Man and Nature mourned their first decay; 
When every form of death and every woe 
Shot from malignant stars to earth below; 
When Murder bared her arm, and rampant War 35 

Yoked the red dragons of her iron car; 
When Peace and Mercy, banished from the plain, 
Sprung on the viewless winds to Heaven again; 
All, all forsook the friendless, guilty mind. 
But Hope, the charmer, lingered still behind. 40 

1796 f -99- 1799- 



YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND 

Ye mariners of England, 

That guard our native seas ; 

Whose flag has braved, a thousand years. 

The battle and the breeze ! 

Your glorious standard launch again 5 

To match another foe. 

And sweep through the deep. 

While the stormy winds do blow; 

While the battle rages loud and long. 

And the stormy winds do blow. 10 

The spirits of your fathers 

Shall start from every wave ! 

For the deck it was their field of fame. 

And Ocean was their grave. 

Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell 15 

Your manly hearts shall glow. 



I04 



ENGLISH POEMS 



As ye sweep through the deep, 

While the stormy winds do blow ; 

While the battle rages loud and long. 

And the stormy winds do blow. 20 

Britannia needs no bulwarks, 

No towers along the steep; 

Her march is o'er the mountain waves, 

Her home is on the deep. 

With thunders from her native oak 25 

She quells the floods below, 

As they roar on the shore. 

When the stormy winds do blow; 

When the battle rages loud and long, 

And the stormy winds do blow. 30 

The meteor flag of England 
Shall yet terrific burn, 
Till danger's troubled night depart, 
And the star of peace return. 

Then, then, ye ocean warriors ! 35 

Our song and feast shall flow 
To the fame of your name. 
When the storm has ceased to blow; 
When the fiery fight is heard no more. 
And the storm has ceased to blow. 40 

i7gg~i8oo. 1801. 

HOHENLINDEN ~ " - 

On Linden, when the sun was low. 
All bloodless lay th' untrodden snow, 
And dark as" winter was the flow 
Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 

But Linden saw another sight, 5 

When the drum beat at dead of night, 
Commanding fires of death to light 
The darkness of her scenery. 

By torch and trumpet fast arrayed. 

Each horseman drew his battle-blade, 10 

And furious every charger neighed. 

To join the dreadful revelry. 



THOMAS CAMPBELL 105 

Then shook the hills with thunder riven, 

Then rushed the steed to battle driven, 

And louder than the bolts of heaven 15 

Far flashed the red artillery. 

But redder yet that light shall glow 

On Linden's hills of stained snow, 

And bloodier yet the torrent flow 

Of Iser, rolling rapidly. 20 

'T is morn ; but scarce yon level sun 
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun, 
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun 
Shout in their sulphurous canopy. 

The combat deepens. On, ye brave, 25 

Who rush to glory, or the grave ! 
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave. 
And charge with all thy chivalry ! 

Few, few shall part where many meet ! 
The snow shall be their winding-sheet, 30 

And every turf beneath their feet 
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre. 
1802. 1802. 

BATTLE OF THE BALTIC 

Of Nelson and the North 

Sing the glorious day's renown, 

When to battle fierce came forth 

All the might of Denmark's crown. 

And her arms along the deep proudly shone; S 

By each gun the lighted brand, 

In a bold determined hand, 

And the Prince of all the land 

Led them on. 

Like leviathans afloat, 10 

Lay their bulwarks on the brine. 

While the sign of battle flew 

On the lofty British line; 

It was ten of April morn by the chime. 



I06 ENGLISH POEMS 



As they drifted on their path, 15 

There was silence deep as death ; 
And the boldest held his breath, 
For a time. 

But the might of England flushed 
To anticipate the scene; 20 

And her van the fleeter rushed 
O'er the deadly space between. 
"Hearts of oak!" our captains cried, when each 

gun 
From its adamantine lips 

Spread a death-shade around the ships, 25 

Like the hurricane eclipse 
Of the sun. 

Again ! again ! again ! 

And the havoc did not slack, 

Till a feeble cheer the Dane 30 

To our cheering sent us back; 

Their shots along the deep slowly boom — 

Then ceased — and all is wail. 

As they strike the shattered sail. 

Or in conflagration pale 35 

Light the gloom. 

Out spoke the victor then, 
As he hailed them o'er the wave: 
"Ye are brothers ! ye are men ! 
And we conquer but to save; 40 

So peace instead of death let us bring. 
But yield, proud foe, thy fleet, 
With the crews, at England's feet. 
And make submission meet 
To our King," .45 

Then Denmark blessed our chief, 

That he gave her wounds repose; 

And the sounds of joy and grief 

From her people wildly rose. 

As Death withdrew his shades from the day; 50 

While the sun looked smiling bright 



THOMAS CAMPBELL 107-^ 

O'er a wide and woeful sight, 
Where the fires of funeral light 
Died away. 

Now joy, old England, raise 55 

For the tidings of thy might, 

By the festal cities' blaze. 

Whilst the wine cup shines in light ! 

And yet, amidst that joy and uproar, 

Let us think of them that sleep, 60 

Full many a fathom deep. 

By thy wild and stormy steep, 

Elsinore ! 

Brave hearts ! to Britain's pride 

Once so faithful and so true, 65 

On the deck of fame that died. 

With the gallant good Riou; 

Soft sigh the winds of heaven o'er their grave! 

While the billow mournful rolls, 

And the mermaid's song condoles, 70 

Singing glory to the souls 

Of the brave! 

1804-05. 1809. 



LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER 

A chieftain, to the Highlands bound. 
Cries, "Boatman, do not tarry! 

And I '11 give thee a silver pound 
To row us o'er the ferry." 

"Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle, 
This dark and stormy water?" 

"O, I 'm the chief of Ulva's Isle, 
And this. Lord Ullin's daughter. 

"And fast before her father's men 

Three days we 've fled together, 
For should he find us in the glen, 
My blood would stain the heather. 



ENGLISH POEMS 



"His horsemen hard behind us ride; 

Should they our steps discover. 
Then who will cheer my bonny bride 15 

When they have slain her lover?" 

Outspoke the hardy Highland wight : 

"I '11 go, my chief — I 'm ready ; 
It is not for your silver bright, 

But for your winsome lady. 20 

"And by my word ! the bonny bird 
In danger shall not tarry; 
So though the waves are raging white, 
I'll row you o'er the ferry." 

By this the storm grew loud apace, 25 

The water-wraith was shrieking; 
And in the scowl of heaven each face 

Grew dark as they were speaking. 

But still as wilder blew the wind, 

And as the night grew drearer, 30 

Adown the glen rode armed men — 

Their trampling sounded nearer. 

"O haste thee, haste !" the lady cries, 

"Though tempests round us gather; 
I '11 meet the raging of the skies, 35 

. But not an angry father." 

The boat has left a stormy land, 

A stormy sea before her, — 
When, oh ! too strong for human hand. 

The tempest gathered o'er her. 40 

And still they rowed amidst the roar 

Of waters fast prevailing: 
Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore — 

His wrath was changed to wailing. 

For sore dismayed, through storm and shade, 45 

His child he did discover : 
One lovely hand she stretched for aid. 

And one was round her lover. 



WALTER SCOTT 109 



"Come back ! come back !" he cried in grief, 

"Across this stormy water ; 50 

And I '11 forgive your Highland chief, 
My daughter ! — oh, my daughter !" 

'T was vain : — the loud waves lashed the shore, 

Return or aid preventing; — 
The waters wild went o'er his child, 55 

And he was left lamenting. 
1795-1S05. 1809. 



WALTER SCOTT 

FROM 

THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL 

The feast was over in Branksome tower, 

And the Ladye had gone to her secret bower, 

Her bower that was guarded by word and by spell. 

Deadly to hear, and deadly to tell — 

Jesu Maria, shield us well ! 5 

No living wight, save the Ladye alone, 

Had dared to cross the threshold stone. 

The tables were drawn, it was idlesse all; 

Knight and page and household squire 
Loitered through the lofty hall, 10 

Or crowded round the ample fire; 
The stag-hounds, weary with the chase, 

Lay stretched upon the rushy floor. 
And urged, in dreams, the forest-race 

From Teviot-stone to Eskdale-moor. 15 

Nine-and-twenty knights of fame 

Hung their shields in Branksome Hall; 
Nine-and-twenty squires of name 

Brought them their steeds to bower from stall; 

Nine-and-twenty yeomen tall 20 

Waited, duteous, on them all : 
They were all knights of metal true, 
Kinsmen to the bold Buccleuch. 



no ENGLISH POEMS 



Ten of them were sheathed in steel, 

With belted sword, and spur on heel; 25 

They quitted not their harness bright, 

Neither by day nor yet by night; 

They lay down to rest 

With corslet laced. 
Pillowed on buckler cold and hard; 30 

They carved at the meal 

With gloves of steel. 
And they drank the red wine through the helmet 
barred. 

Ten squires, ten yeomen, mail-clad men, 

Waited the beck of the warders ten; 35 

Thirty steeds, both fleet and wight. 

Stood saddled in stable day and night, 

Barbed with frontlet of steel, I trow, 

And with Jedwood-axe at saddle-bow; 

A hundred more fed free in stall : 40 

Such was the custom of Branksome Hall. 

Why do these steeds stand ready dight? 

Why watch these warriors, armed, by night? 

They watch to hear the blood-hound baying; 

They watch to hear the war-horn braying, 45 

To see St. George's red cross streaming. 

To see the midnight beacon gleaming; 

They watch against Southern force and guile, 
Lest Scroop or Howard or Percy's powers 
Threaten Branksome's lordly towers, 50 

From Warkworth or Naworth or merry Carlisle. 

Such is the custom of Branksome Hall. 

Many a valiant knight is here; 
But he, the chieftain of them all. 

His sword hangs rusting on the wall, 55 

Beside his broken spear. 

Bards long shall tell 

How Lord Walter fell : 

When startled burghers fled, afar. 

The furies of the Border war; 60 

When the streets of high Dunedin 



WALTER SCOTT 



Saw lances gleam, and falchions redden, 
And heard the slogan's deadly yell; 
Then the Chief of Branksome fell. 

Can piety the discord heal, 65 

Or stanch the death-feud's enmity? 
Can Christian lore, can patriot zeal. 

Can love of blessed charity? 
No ! vainly to each holy shrine. 

In mutual pilgrimage, they drew; 70 

Implored, in vain, the grace divine 

For chiefs their own red falchions slew. 
While Cessford owns the rule of Carr, 

While Ettrick boasts the line of Scott, 
The slaughtered chiefs, the mortal jar, 75 

The havoc of the feudal war. 

Shall never, never be forgot! 

In sorrow o'er Lord Walter's bier 

The warlike foresters had bent, 
And many a flower and many a tear 80 

Old Teviot's maids and matrons lent; 
But o'er her warrior's bloody bier 
The Ladye dropped nor flower nor tear! 
Vengeance, deep-brooding o'er the slain. 

Had locked the source of softer woe; 85 

And burning pride and high disdain 

Forbade the rising tear to flow; 
Until, amid his sorrowing clan. 

Her son lisped from the nurse's knee, 
■'And if I live to be a man, go 

My father's death revenged shall be!" 
Then fast the mother's tears did seek 
To dew the infant's kindling cheek. 

All loose her negligent attire, 

All loose her golden hair, 9S 

Hung Margaret o'er her slaughtered sire, 

And wept in wild despair; 
But not alone the bitter tear 

Had filial grief supplied, 
For hopeless love and anxious fear 100 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Had lent their mingled tide, 

Nor in her mother's altered eye 

Dared she to look for sympathy. 

Her lover 'gainst her father's clan, 

With Carr in arms had stood, 105 

When Mathouse-burn to Melrose ran 

All purple with their blood; 
And well she knew her mother dread, 
Before Lord Cranstoun she should wed, 
Would see her on her dying bed. no 

Of noble race the Ladye came; 
Her father was a clerk of fame. 

Of Bethune's line of Picardie. 
He learned the art that none may name, 

In Padua, far beyond the sea: . 115 

Men said he changed his mortal frame 

By feat of magic mystery; 
For when in studious mood he paced 

St. Andrew's cloistered hall. 
His form no darkening shadow traced 120 

Upon the sunny wall ! 

And of his skill, as bards avow, 

He taught that Ladye fair. 
Till to her bidding she could bow 

The viewless forms of air. 12$ 

And now she sits in secret bower, 
In old Lord David's western tower, 
And listens to a heavy sound 
That moans the mossy turrets round. 

Is it the roar of Teviot's tide, 130 

That chafes against the scaur's red side? 
Is it the wind that swings the oaks? 
Is it the echo from the rocks? 
What may it be, the heavy sound, 
That moans old Branksome's turrets round? 135 

At the sullen, moaning sound, 

The ban-dogs bay and howl; 
And, from the turrets round. 

Loud whoops the startled owl. 



WALTER SCOTT 113 



In the hall, both squire and knight 140 

Swore that a storm was near, 
And looked forth to view the night; 

But the night was still and clear! 

From the sound of Teviot's tide. 

Chafing with the mountain's side, 145 

From the groan of the wind-swung oak, 

From the sullen echo of the rock, 

From the voice of the coming storm, 

The Ladye knew it well ! 
It was the Spirit of the Flood that spoke, 150 

And he called on the Spirit of the Fell. 

RIVER SPIRIT 

"Sleep'st thou, brother?" 

MOUNTAIN SPIRIT 

"Brother, nay — 
On my hills the moonbeams play. 
From Craik-cross to Skelfhill-pen, 

By every rill, in every glen, 155 

Merry elves their morris pacing, 

To aerial minstrelsy, 
Emerald rings on brown heath tracing, 
Trip it deft and merrily. 
Up, and mark their nimble feet ! 160 

Up, and list their music sweet!" 

RIVER SPIRIT 

"Tears of an imprisoned maiden 
Mix with my polluted stream; 
Margaret of Branksome, sorrow-laden. 

Mourns beneath the moon's pale beam. 165 

Tell me, thou, who view'st the stars. 
When shall cease these feudal jars? 
What shall be the maiden's fate? 
Who shall be the maiden's mate?" 

MOUNTAIN SPIRIT 

"Arthur's slow wain his course doth roll, 170 

In utter darkness, round the pole; 
The Northern Bear lowers black and grim; 
Orion's studded belt is dim; 



114 ENGLISH POEMS 



Twinkling faint and distant far, 

Shimmers through mist each planet star; 175 

111 may I read their high decree ! 
But no kind influence deign they shower 
On Teviot's tide and Branksome's tower, 

Till pride be quelled and love be free." 

The unearthly voices ceast, 180 

And the heavy sound was still; 
It died on the river's breast, 

It died on the side of the hill. 
But round Lord David's tower 

The sound still floated near; 185 

For it rung in the Ladye's bower, 

And it rung in the Ladye's ear. 
She raised her stately head, 

And her heart throbbed high with pride : 
"Your mountains shall bend, 190 

And your streams ascend. 

Ere Margaret be our foeman's bride!" 
1802-04. 1805. 

LOCHINVAR 
O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west ! 
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best; 
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none; 
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone. 
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, 5 

There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. 

He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone; 

He swam the Eske river where ford there was none; 

But ere he alighted at Netherby gate. 

The bride had consented, the gallant came late : 10 

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war. 

Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. 

So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall, 
Among bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all. 
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword, 15 
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word) : 
"O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war. 
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?" 



WALTER SCOTT 115 



"I long wooed your daughter; my suit you denied; 
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide; 20 

And now am I come, with this lost love of mine 
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine. 
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, 
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar." 

The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up, 25 

He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup. 
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh, 
With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye. 
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar — 
"Now tread we a measure !" said young Lochinvar. 30 

So stately his form, and so lovely her face. 

That never a hall such a galliard did grace; 

While her mother did fret, and her father did fume. 

And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume; 

And the bride-maidens whispered, " 'T were better by far 35 

To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar." 

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear, 
When they reached the hall-door, and the charger stood near; 
So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung. 
So light to the saddle before her he sprung! 40 

"She is won ! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur ! 
They '11 have fleet steeds that follow !" quoth young Lochinvar. 

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan; 

Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran ; 

There was racing and chasing, on Cannobie Lee, 45 

But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see. 

So daring in love and so dauntless in war. 

Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar? 

1806-08. 1808. 



CORONACH 

He is gone on the mountain, 
He is lost to the forest. 

Like a summer-dried fountain, 
When our need was the sorest. 



Il6 ENGLISH POEMS 



The font, reappearing, 5 

From the rain-drops shall borrow, 
But to us comes no cheering, 

To Duncan no morrow ! 

The hand of the reaper 

Takes the ears that are hoary, 10 

But the voice of the weeper 

Wails manhood in glory. 
The autumn winds rushing 

Waft the leaves that are searest, 
But our flower was in flushing 15 

When blighting was nearest. 

Fleet foot on the correi, 

Sage counsel in cumber, 
Red hand in the foray. 

How sound is thy slumber! 20 

Like the dew on the mountain. 

Like the foam on the river. 
Like the bubble on the fountain, 

Thou art gone, and forever! 
1809-10. 1810. 



FROM 

THE LADY OF THE LAKE 

BATTLE OF BEAL' AN DUINE 

The minstrel came once more to view 
The eastern ridge of Benvenue, 
For, ere he parted, he would say 
Farewell to lovely Loch Achray — 
Where shall he find, in foreign land, 
So lone a lake, so sweet a strand ! — 
There is no breeze upon the fern. 

No ripple on the lake; 
Upon her eyrie nods the erne. 

The deer has sought the brake; 
The small birds will not sing aloud. 

The springing trout lies still. 
So darkly glooms yon thunder-cloud, 



WALTER SCOTT 117 



That swathes, as with a purple shroud, 

Benledi's distant hill. 15 

Is it the thunder's solemn sound 

That mutters deep and dread. 
Or echoes from the groaning ground 

The warrior's measured tread? 
Is it the lightning's quivering glance 20 

That on the thicket streams, 
Or do they flash on spear and lance, 
The sun's retiring beams? — 
I see the dagger-crest of Mar, 

I see the Moray's silver star, 25 

Wave o'er the cloud of Saxon war. 
That up the lake comes winding far! 
To hero bound for battle-strife, 

Or bard of martial lay, 
'T were worth ten years of peaceful life, 30 

One glance at their array! 

Their light-armed archers far and near 

Surveyed the tangled ground; 
Their centre ranks, with pike and spear, 

A twilight forest frowned ; 35 

Their barbed horsemen, in the rear. 

The stern battalia crowned. 
No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang, 

Still were the pipe and drum; 
Save heavy tread, and armour's clang, 40 

The sullen march was dumb. 
There breathed no wind their crests to shake. 

Or wave their flags abroad; 
Scarce the frail aspen seemed to quake, 

That shadowed o'er their road; 45 

Their vaward scouts no tidings bring. 

Can rouse no lurking foe. 
Nor spy a trace of living thing 

Save when they stirred the roe. 
The host moves iike a deep sea-wave 50 

Where rise no rocks its pride to brave, 

High-swelling, dark, and slow. 
The lake is passed, and now they gain 



Il8 ENGLISH POEMS 



A narrow and a broken plain, 

Before the Trosach's rugged jaws; 55 

And here the horse and spearmen pause, 

While, to explore the dangerous glen. 

Dive through the pass the archer-men. 

At once there rose so wild a yell 

Within that dark and narrow dell 60 

As all the fiends from heaven that fell 

Had pealed the banner-cry of hell ! 

Forth from the pass in tumult driven, 
Like chaff before the wind of heaven, 

The archery appear: 65 

For life ! for life ! their flight they ply — 
And shriek, and shout, and battle-cry, 
And plaids and bonnets waving high, 
And broadswords flashing to the sky, 

Are maddening in the rear. yo 

Onward they drive in dreadful race, 

Pursuers and pursued; 
Before that tide of flight and chase. 
How shall it keep its rooted place, 
The spearmen's twilight wood? 75 

"Down ! down !" cried Mar, "your lances down ! 
Bear back both friend and foe !" 
Like reeds before the tempest's frown, 
That serried grove of lances brown 

At once lay levelled low; 80 

And, closely shouldering side by side, 
The bristling ranks the onset bide. 
"We '11 quell the savage mountaineer, 
As their Tinchel cows the game! 
They come as fleet as forest deer, 85 

We '11 drive them back as tame !" 
Bearing before them, in their course. 
The relics of the the archer force, 
Like wave with crest of sparkling foam, 
Right onward did Clan-Alpine come. 90 

Above the tide, each broadsword bright 
Was brandishing like beam of light, 
Each targe was dark below; 



WALTER SCOTT 119 



And with the ocean's mighty swing, 
When heaving to the tempest's wing, 95 

They hurled them on the foe. 
I heard the lance's shivering crash, 
As when the whirlwind rends the ash; 
I heard the broadsword's deadly clang. 
As if an hundred anvils rang! 100 

But Moray wheeled his rearward rank 
Of horsemen on Clan- Alpine's flank — 
"My banner-man, advance ! 
I see," he cried, "their column shake. 
Now, gallants ! for your ladies' sake, 105 

Upon them with the lance !" 
The horsemen dashed among the rout, 
As deer break through the broom; 
Their steeds are stout, their swords are out, 

They soon make lightsome room. no 

Clan-Alpine's best are backward borne — 

Where, where was Roderick then ! 
One blast upon his bugle-horn 
Were worth a thousand men. 
And refluent through the pass of fear 115 

The battle's tide was poured; 
Vanished the Saxon's struggling spear. 

Vanished the mountain-sword. 
As Bracklinn's chasm, so black and steep. 

Receives her roaring linn, 120 

As the dark caverns of the deep 
Suck the wild whirlpool in, 
So did the deep and darksome pass 
Devour the battle's mingled mass; 
None linger now upon the plain, 125 

Save those who ne'er shall fight again. 

Now westward rolls the battle's din. 

That deep and doubling pass within. 

Minstrel, away! the work of fate 

Is bearing on; its issue wait 130 

Where the rude Trosachs' dread defile 

Opens on Katrine's lake and isle. — 

Gray Benvenue I soon repassed; 



I20 ENGLISH POEMS 



Loch Katrine lay beneath me cast. 

The sun is set; the clouds are met; 135 

The lowering scowl of heaven 

An inky hue of livid blue 

To the deep lake has given; 
Strange gusts of wind from mountain glen 
Swept o'er the lake, then sunk again. 140 

I heeded not the eddying surge; 
Mine eye but saw the Trosachs' gorge, 
Mine ear but heard the sullen sound 
Which like an earthquake shook the ground, 
And spoke the stern and desperate strife 14S 

That parts not but with parting life, 
Seeming, to minstrel ear, to toll 
The dirge of many a passing soul. 
Nearer it comes — the dim-wood glen 
The martial flood disgorged again, 150 

But not in mingled tide : 
The plaided warriors of the North 
High on the mountain thunder forth, 

And overhang its side; 
While by the lake below appears 155 

The dark'ning cloud of Saxon spears. 
At weary bay each shattered band. 
Eyeing their foemen, sternly stand; 
Their banners stream like tattered sail 
That flings its fragments to the gale, 160 

And broken arms and disarray 
Marked the fell havoc of the day. 

Viewing the mountain's ridge askance. 

The Saxon stood in sullen trance, 

Till Moray pointed with his lance, 165 

And cried, "Behold yon isle! 
See! none are left to guard its strand 
But women weak, that wring the hand. 
'T is there of yore the robber band 

Their booty wont to pile. 170 

My purse, with bonnet-pieces store. 
To him will swim a bow-shot o'er. 
And loose a shallop from the shore. 



WALTER SCOTT 121 



Lightly we'll tame the war-wolf then, 

Lords of his mate and brood and den." 175 

Forth from the ranks a spearman sprung. 

On earth his casque and corslet rung. 

He plunged him in the wave. 
All saw the deed — the purpose knew; 
And to their clamours Benvenue 180 

A mingled echo gave : 
The Saxons shout, their mate to cheer. 
The helpless females screamed for fear. 
And yells for rage the mountaineer. 
'T was then, as by the outcry riven, 185 

Poured down at once the lowering heaven; 
A whirlwind swept Loch Katrine's breast. 
Her billows reared their snowy crest. 
Well for the swimmer swelled they high, 
To mar the Highland marksman's eye ; 190 

For round him showered, 'mid rain and hail. 
The vengeful arrows of the Gael. 
In vain ; he nears the isle, and lo ! 
His hand is on a shallop's bow. 

— ^Just then a flash of lightning came; 195 

It tinged the waves and strand with flame: 
I marked Duncraggan's widowed dame. 
Behind an oak I saw her stand, 
A naked dirk gleamed in her hand; — 
It darkened — but amid the moan 200 

Of waves, I heard a dying groan; — 
Another flash! — the spearman floats 
A weltering corse beside the boats, 
And the stern matron o'er him stood. 
Her hand and dagger streaming blood. 205 

"Revenge! revenge!" the Saxons cried; 
The Gaels' exulting shout replied. 
Despite the elemental rage, 
Again they hurried to engage ; 

But ere they closed in desperate fight, 210 

Bloody with spurring came a knight. 
Sprung from his horse, and, from a crag, 
Waved 'twixt the hosts a milk-white flag. 



122 ENGLISH POEMS 



Clarion and trumpet by his side 

Rung forth a truce-note high and wide, • 215 

While, in the Monarch's name, afar 
An herald's voice forbade the war. 
For Bothwell's lord, and Roderick bold, 
Were both, he said, in captive hold. 
1809-10. 1810. 

PROUD MAISIE 
Proud Maisie is in the wood. 

Walking so early ; 
Sweet Robin sits on the bush. 

Singing so rarely. 

"Tell me, thou bonny bird, 5 

When shall I marry me?" 
"When six braw gentlemen 

Kirkward shall carry ye." 

"Who makes the bridal bed. 

Birdie, say truly?" 10 

"The grey-headed sexton. 

That delves the grave duly. 

"The glow-worm o'er grave and stone 

Shall light thee steady; 
The owl from the steeple sing, 15 

'Welcome, proud lady.' " 
1818. 1818. 

COUNTY GUY 

Ah, County Guy, the hour is nigh. 

The sun has left the lea. 
The orange-flower perfumes the bower, 

The breeze is on the sea. 
The lark, his lay who thrilled all day, 5 

Sits hushed his partner nigh; 
Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour — 

But where is County Guy? 

The village maid steals through the shade, 

Her shepherd's suit to hear; 10 



WALTER SCOTT 123 



To beauty shy, by lattice high, 

Sings high-born Cavalier. 
The star of Love, all stars above. 
Now reigns o'er earth and sky; 
And high and low the influence know — 15 

But where is County Guy? 
18^3. 1823. 

BONNY DUNDEE 

To the Lords of Convention 't was Claver'se who spoke : 
"Ere the King's crown shall fall there are crowns to be broke ; 
So let each Cavalier who loves honour and me 
Come follow the bonnet of Bonny Dundee. 

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, 5 

Come saddle your horses and call up your men, 
Come open the West Port and let me gang free, 
And it's room for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee!" 

Dundee he is mounted, he rides up the street; 
The bells are rung backward, the drums they are beat; 10 

But the Provost, douce man, said, "Just e'en let him be ; 
The Gude Town is weel quit of that Deil of Dundee." 
Come fill up my cup, etc. 

As he rode down the sanctified bends of the Bow, 
Ilk carline was flyting and shaking her pow; 15 

But the young plants of grace they looked couthie and slee, 
Thinking, "Luck to thy bonnet, thou Bonny Dundee !" 
Come fill up my cup, etc. 

With sour-featured Whigs the Grassmarket was crammed. 
As if half the West had set tryst to be hanged! 20 

There was spite in each look, there was fear in each e'e. 
As they watched for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee. 
Come fill up my cup, etc. 

These cowls of Kilmarnock had spits and had spears, 
And lang-hafted gullies to kill Cavaliers ; 25 

But they shrunk to close-heads, and the causeway was free. 
At the toss of the bonnet of Bonny Dundee. 
Come fill up my cup, etc. 



124 



ENGLISH POEMS 



He spurred to the foot of the proud Castle rock, 
And with the gay Gordon he gallantly spoke: 30 

"Let Mons Meg and her marrows speak twa words or three, 
For the love of the bonnet of Bonny Dundee." 
Come fill up my cup, etc. 

The "Gordon demands of him which way he goes — 
"Where'er shall direct me the shade of Montrose ! 35 

Your Grace in short space shall hear tidings of me, 
Or that low lies the bonnet of Bonny Dundee. 
Come fill up my cup, etc. 

"There are hills beyond Pentland and lands beyond Forth; 
If there 's lords in the Lowlands, there 's chiefs in the North ; 40 
There are wild Duniewassals three thousand times three, 
Will cry hoigh! for the bonnet of Bonny Dundee. 
Come fill up my cup, etc. 

"There's brass on the target of barkened bull-hide; 
There 's steel in the scabbard that dangles beside ; 45 

The brass shall be burnished, the steel shall flash free. 
At a toss of the bonnet of Bonny Dundee. 
Come fill up my cup, etc. 

"Away to the hills, to the caves, to the rocks — 
Ere I own an usurper, I '11 couch with the fox ! 50 

And tremble, false Whigs, in the midst of your glee; 
You have not' seen the last of my bonnet and me !" 
Come fill up my cup, etc. 

He waved his proud hand, and the trumpets were blown ; 

The kettle-drums clashed, and the horsemen rode on, 55 

Till on Ravelston's cliffs and on Clermiston's lee 

Died away the wild war-notes of Bonny Dundee. 

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can. 
Come saddle the horses and call up the men. 
Come open your gates and let me gae free, 60 

. For it 's up with the bonnets of Bonny Dundee ! 

1825. 1830. 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 125 

GEORGE GORDON BYRON 

LACHIN Y GAIR 

Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses ! 

In you let the minions of luxury rove; 
Restore me the rocks where the snow-flake reposes, 

Though still they are sacred to freedom and love. 
Yet, Caledonia, beloved are thy mountains, 5 

Round their white summits though elements war; 
Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth-flowing fountains, 

I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr. 

Ah, there my young footsteps in infancy wandered ; 

My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid; 10 

On chieftains long perished my memory pondered, 

As daily I strode through the pine-covered glade. 
I sought not my home till the day's dying glory 

Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star; 
For fancy was cheered by traditional story, 15 

Disclosed by the natives of dark Loch na Garr. 

"Shades of the dead ! have I not heard your voices 

Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale?" 
Surely the soul of the hero rejoices. 

And rides on the wind o'er his own Highland vale. .'?o 

Round Loch na Garr while the stormy mist gathers, 

Winter presides in his cold icy car : 
Clouds there encircle the forms of my fathers; 

They dwell in the tempests of dark Loch na Garr. 

"Ill-starred, though brave, did no visions foreboding 25 

Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause?" 
Ah, were you destined to die at CuUoden, 

Victory crowned not your fall with applause: 
Still were you happy in death's earthy slumber, 

You rest with your clan in the caves of Braemar; 30 

The pibroch resounds, to the piper's loud number. 

Your deeds on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr. 

Years have rolled on, Loch na Garr, since I left you, 
Years must elapse ere I tread you again; 



126 ENGLISH POEMS 



Nature of verdure and flowers has bereft you, 35 

Yet still are you dearer than Albion's plain. 

England, thy beauties are tame and domestic 
To one who has roved on the mountains afar; 

Oh, for the crags that are wild and majestic, 
The steep, frowning glories of dark Loch na Garr ! 40 

1807. 

FROM 

ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 

Behold ! in various throngs the scribbling crew, 

For notice eager, pass in long review : 

Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace. 

And rhyme and blank maintain an equal race; 

Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode; 5 

And tales of terror jostle on the road; 

Immeasurable measures move along. 

For simpering Folly loves a varied song. 

To strange mysterious Dulness still the friend. 

Admires the strain she cannot comprehend. 10 

Thus Lays of Minstrels — may they be the last ! — 

On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast; 

While mountain spirits prate to river sprites. 

That dames may listen to the sound at nights ; 

And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's brood, 15 

Decoy young Border nobles through the wood, 

And skip at every step. Lord knows how high. 

And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why; 

While high-born ladies in their magic cell. 

Forbidding knights to read who cannot spell, 20 

Despatch a courier to a wizard's grave, 

And fight with honest men to shield a knave. 



Oh, Southey ! Southey ! cease thy varied song ! 
A bard may chant too often and too long. 
As thou art strong in verse, in mercy spare ! 25 

A fourth, alas, were more than we could bear. 
But if, in spite of all the world can say. 
Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way. 
If still in Berkeley ballads most uncivil 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 127 

Thou wilt devote old women to the Devil, 30 

The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue: 
■'God help thee," Southey, and thy readers too. 

Next comes the dull disciple of thy school, 
That mild apostate from poetic rule. 

The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay 35 

As soft as evening in his favourite May; 
Who warns his friend "to shake off toil and trouble, 
And quit his books, for fear of growing double"; 
Who, both by precept and example, shows 
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose, 40 

Convincing all, by demonstration plain. 
Poetic souls delight in prose insane. 
And Christmas stories tortured into rhyme 
Contain the essence of the true sublime. 
Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy, 45 

The idiot mother of "an idiot boy," 
A moon-struck, silly lad, who lost his way, 
And, like his bard, confounded night with day. 
So close on each pathetic part he dwells. 
And each adventure so sublimely tells, 50 

That all who view the "idiot in his glory" 
Conceive the bard the hero of the story. 

Health to immortal Jeffrey! once, in name, 
England could boast a judge almost the same; 
In soul so like, so merciful, yet just, ' 55 

Some think that Satan has resigned his trust, 
And given the spirit to the world again, 
To sentence letters, as he sentenced men. 
With hand less mighty, but with heart as black, 
With voice as willing to decree the rack; 60 

Bred in the courts betimes, though all that law 
As yet hath taught him is to find a flaw; 
Since well instructed in the patriot school 
To rail at party, though a party tool. 

Who knows, if chance his patrons should restore 65 

Back to the sway they forfeited before. 
His scribbling toils some recompense may meet. 
And raise this Daniel to the judgment-seat? 
Let Jeffreys' shade indulg'^ ihe pious hope. 



128 ENGLISH POEMS 



And, greeting thus, present him with a rope : 70 

"Heir to my virtues ! man of equal mind ! 
Skilled to condemn as to traduce mankind, 
This cord receive, for thee reserved with care, 
To wield in judgment, and at length to wear." 



Thus far I 've held my undisturbed career 75 

Prepared for rancor, steeled 'gainst selfish fear. 
This thing of rhyme I ne'er disdained to own — 
Though not obtrusive, yet not quite unknown; 
My voice was heard again, though not so loud, 
My page, though nameless never disavowed; 80 

And now at once I tear the veil away: — 
Cheer on the pack ! the quarry stands at bay, 
Unscared by all the din -of Melbourne house, 
By Lambe's resentment, or by Holland's spouse, 
By Jeffrey's harmless pistol, Hallam's rage, 85 

Edina's brawny sons and brimstone page. 
Our men in buckram shall have blows enough, 
And feel they too are "penetrable stuff" ; 
And though I hope not hence unscathed to go, 
Who conquers me shall find a stubborn foe. 90 

The time hath been when no harsh sound would fall 
From lips that now may seem imbued with gall; 
Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise 
The meanest thing that crawled beneath my eyes. 
But now, so callous grown, so changed since youth, 95 

I 've learned to think, and sternly speak the truth ; 
Learned to deride the critic's starch decree, 
And break him on the wheel he meant for me; 
To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kiss. 
Nor care if courts and crowds applaud or hiss. 100 

Nay more, though all my rival rhymesters frown, 
I too can hunt a poetaster down ; 
And, armed in proof, the gauntlet cast at once 
To Scotch marauder and to Southern dunce. 
Thus much I 've dared ; if my incondite lay 105 

Hath wronged these righteous times, let others say. 
This, let the world, which knows not how to spare, 
Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare. 
1807-09. 1809. 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 129 

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY 

She walks in beauty, like the night 

Of cloudless climes and starry skies 
And all that 's best of dark and bright 

Meet in her aspect and her eyes, 
Thus mellowed to that tender light ' 5 

Which heaven to gaudy day denies. 

One shade the more, one ray the less, 

Had half impaired the nameless grace 
Which waves in every raven tress, 

Or softly lightens o'er her face, 10 

Where thoughts serenely sweet express 

How pure, how dear, their dwelling-place. " 

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow. 

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent. 
The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 15 

But tell of days in goodness spent, 
A mind at peace with all below, 

A heart whose love is innocent ! 
1814? 181 5. 

WHEN WE TWO PARTED 

When we two parted 

In silence and tears. 
Half broken-hearted 

To sever for years. 
Pale grew thy cheek and cold, 5 

Colder thy kiss; 
Truly that hour foretold 

Sorrow to this. 

The dew of the morning 

Sunk chill on my brow — 10 

It felt like the warning 

Of what I feel now. 
Thy vows are all broken, 

And light is thy fame; 
I hear thy name spoken, 15 

And share in its shame, 



130 ENGLISH POEMS 



They name thee before me, 

A knell to mine ear; 
A shudder comes o'er me — 

Why wert thou so dear? 20 

They know not I knew thee, 

Who knew thee too well; 
Long, long shall I rue thee, 

Too deeply to tell. 

In secret we met — 25 

In silence I grieve 
That thy heart could forget, 

Thy spirit deceive. 
If I should meet thee 

After long years, 30 

How should I greet thee? 

With silence and tears. 
1815? 1816. 

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON 

My hair is grey, but not with years, 
Nor grew it white 
In a single night. 
As men's have grown from sudden fears. 
My limbs are bowed, though not with toil, 5 

But rusted with a vile repose. 
For they have been a dungeon's spoil, 

And mine has been the fate of those 
To whom the goodly earth and air 
Are banned and barred — forbidden fare. 10 

But this was for my father's faith 
I suffered chains and courted death : 
That father perished at the stake 
For tenets he would not forsake; 
And for the same his lineal race IS 

In darkness found a dwelling-place. 
We were seven — ^who now are one; 

Six in youth and one in age 
Finished as they had begun. 

Proud of Persecution's rage : 20 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 



131 



One in fire and two in field, 

Their belief with blood have sealed, 

Dying as their father died. 

For the God their foes denied; 

Three were in a dungeon cast, 25 

Of whom this wreck is left the last. 

There are seven pillars of Gothic mould 

In Chillon's dungeons deep and old; 

There are seven columns massy and grey. 

Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 30 

A sunbeam which hath lost its way, 

And through the crevice and the cleft 

Of the thick wall is fallen and left, 

Creeping o'er the floor so damp. 

Like a marsh's meteor lamp : 35 

And in each pillar there is a ring. 

And in each ring there is a chain; 
That iron is a cankering thing, 

For in these limbs its teeth remain. 
With marks that will not wear away 40 

Till I have done with this new day. 
Which now is painful to these eyes, 
Which have not seen the sun so rise 
For years — I cannot count them o'er, 
I lost their long and heavy score 45 

When my last brother drooped and died. 
And I lay living by his side. 

They chained us each to a column stone. 

And we were three — yet each alone; 

We could not move a single pace, 50 

We could not see each other's face 

But with that pale and livid light 

That made us strangers in our sight. 

And thus together, yet apart. 

Fettered in hand but joined in heart, 55 

'T was still some solace, in the dearth 

Of the pure elements of earth, 

To hearken to each other's speech. 

And each turn comforter to each 

With some new hope, or legend old, ^ 



132 ENGLISH POEMS 



Or song heroically bold : 
But even these at length grew cold; 
Our voices took a dreary tone, 
An echo of the dungeon stone, 

A grating sound — not full and free 65 

As they of yore were wont to be; 

It might be fancy, but to me 
They never sounded like our own. 

I was the eldest of the three, 

And to uphold and cheer the rest 70 

I ought to do — and did — my best; 
And each did well in his degree. 

The youngest, whom my father loved 
Because our mother's brow was given 
To him, with eyes as blue as heaven, 75 

For him my soul was sorely moved: 
And truly might it be distressed 
To see such bird in such a nest; 
For he was beautiful as day — 

(When day was beautiful to me 80 

As to young eagles, being free) — 

A polar day, which will not see 
A sunset till its summer's gone. 

Its sleepless summer of long light. 
The snow-clad offspring of the sun; 85 

And thus he was as pure and bright, 
And in his natural spirit gay, 
With tears for naught but others' ills. 
And then they flowed like mountain rills, 
Unless he could assuage the woe 90 

Which he abhorred to view below. 

The other was as pure of mind, 

But formed to combat with his kind; 

Strong in his frame, and of a mood 

Which 'gainst the world in war had stood, 95 

And perished in the foremost rank 

With joy — but not in chains to pine : 
His spirit withered with their clank; 

I saw it silently decline — 

And so perchance in sooth did mine; 100 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 



^?>?, 



But yet I forced it on to cheer 
Those relics of a home so dear. 
He was a hunter of the hills, 

Had followed there the deer and wolf; 

To him this dungeon was a gulf, 105 

And fettered feet the worst of ills. 

Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls: 
A thousand feet in depth below 
Its massy waters meet and flow ; 
Thus much the fathom-line was sent no 

From Chillon's snow-white battlement. 

Which round about the wave inthrals; 
A double dungeon wall and wave 
Have made — and like a living grave. 
Below the surface of the lake 115 

The dark .vault lies wherein we lay : 
We heard it ripple night and day; 

Sounding o'er our heads it knocked; 
And I have felt the winter's spray 
Wash through the bars, when winds were high 120 
And wanton in the happy sky ; 

And then the very rock hath rocked, 

And I have felt it shake, unshocked, 
Because I could have smiled to see 
The death that would have set me free. 125 

I said my nearer brother pined, 
I said his mighty heart declined; 
He loathed and put away his food: 
It was not that 'twas coarse and rude. 
For we were used to hunter's fare, 130 

And for the like had little care. 
The milk drawn from the mountain goat 
Was changed for water from the moat; 
Our bread was such as captive's tears 
Have moistened many a thousand years, 135 

Since man lirst pent his fellow men 
Like brutes within an iron den. 
But what were these to us or him? 
These wasted not his heart or limb: 
My brother's soul was of that mould 140 



134 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Which in a palace had grown cold 

Had his free breathing been denied 

The range of the steep mountain's side. 

But why delay the truth? — he died. 

I saw, and could not hold his head, 145 

Nor reach his dying hand — nor dead, — 

Though hard I strove, but strove in vain, 

To rend and gnash my bonds in twain. 

He died — and they unlocked his chain. 

And scooped for him a shallow grave 150 

Even from the cold earth of our cave. 

I begged them, as a boon, to lay 

His corse in dust whereon the day 

Might shine — it was a foolish thought, 

But then within my brain it wrought, 155 

That even in death his freeborn breast 

In such a dungeon could not rest. 

I might have spared my idle prayer — 

They coldly laughed, and laid him there: 

The flat and turfless earth above 160 

The being we so much did love; 

His empty chain above it leant. 

Such murder's fitting monument! 

But he, the favourite and the flower, 

Most cherished since his natal hour, 165 

His mother's image in fair face, 

The infant love of all his race. 

His martyred father's dearest thought, 

My latest care, for whom I sought 

To hoard my life, that his might be 170 

Less wretched now, and one day free; 

He, too, who yet had held untired 

A spirit natural or inspired, 

He, too, was struck, and day by day 

Was withered on the stalk away. 175 

Oh, God! it is a fearful thing 

To see the human soul take wing 

In any shape, in any mood : 

I 've seen it rushing forth in blood, 

I 've seen it on the breaking ocean 180 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 135 

Strive with a swoln convulsive motion, 

I 've seen the sick and ghastly bed 

Of Sin delirious with its dread; 

But these were horrors — this was woe 

Unmixed with such — but sure and s,low. 185 

He faded, and so calm and meek, 

So softly worn, so sweetly weak. 

So tearless, yet so tender — kind. 

And grieved for those he left behind; 

With all the while a cheek whose bloom 190 

Was as a mockery of the tomb, 

Whose tints as gently sunk away 

As a departing rainbow's ray; 

An eye of most transparent light 

That almost made the dungeon bright ; 195 

And not a word of murmur — not 

A groan o'er his untimely lot ; 

A little talk of better days, 

A little hope my own to raise. 

For I was sunk in silence — lost 200 

In this last loss, of all the most; 

And then the sighs he would suppress 

Of fainting nature's feebleness. 

More slowly drawn, grew less and less : 

I listened, but I could not hear — 205 

I called, for I was wild with fear; 

I knew 't was hopeless, but my dread 

Would not be thus admonished; 

I called, and thought I heard a sound — 

I burst my chain with one strong bound, 210 

And rushed to him : — I found him not ; 

/ only stirred in this black spot, 

/ only lived — I only drew 

The accursed breath of dungeon-dew; 

The last — the sole — the dearest link 215 

Between me and the eternal brink, 

Which bound me to my failing race, 

Was broken in this fatal place. 

One on the earth, and one beneath — 

My brothers — both had ceased to breathe: 220 

I took that hand which lay so still. 



136 ENGLISH POEMS 



Alas ! my own was full as chill ; 

I had not strength to stir or strive, 

But felt that I was still alive — 

A frantic feeling, when we know 225 

That what we love shall ne'er be so. 

I know not why 

I could not die; 
I had no earthly hope — but faith, 
And that forbade a selfish death. 230 

What next befell me then and there 

I know not well — I never knew. 
First came the loss of light and air, 

And then of darkness too : 
I had no thought, no feeling — none,* 235 

Among the stones I stood a stone. 
And was, scarce conscious what I wist, 
As shrubless crags within the mist; 
For all was blank, and bleak, and grey; 
It was not night — it was not day; 240 

It was not even the dungeon-light. 
So hateful to my heavy sight, 
But vacancy absorbing space, 
And fixedness — without a place; 
There were no stars — no earth — no time — 245 

No check — no change — no good — no crime — 
But silence, and a stirless breath 
Which neither was of life nor death; 
A sea of stagnant idleness. 
Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless ! 250 

A light broke in upon my brain — 

It was the carol of a bird; 
It ceased, and then it came again, 

The sweetest song ear ever heard; 
And mine was thankful till my eyes 255 

Ran over with the glad surprise, 
And they that moment could not see 
I was the mate of misery. 
But then by dull degrees came back 
My senses to their wonted track : 260 

I saw the dungeon walls and floor 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 137 

Close slowly round me as before; 

I saw the glimmer of the sun 

Creeping as it before had done, 

But through the crevice where it came 265 

That bird was perched, as fond and tame, 

And tamer than upon the tree; 
A lovely bird, with azure wings, 
And song that said a thousand things, 

And seemed to say them all for me! 270 

I never saw its like before, 
I ne'er shall see its likeness more : 
It seemed like me to want a mate, 
But was not half so desolate; 

And it was come to love me when 275 

None lived to love me so again, 
And, cheering from my dungeon's brink, 
Had brought me back to feel and think. 
I know not if it late were free. 

Or broke its cage to perch on mine; 280 

But knowing well captivity. 

Sweet bird, I could not wish for thine! 
Or if it were, in winged guise, 
A visitant from Paradise; 

For — Heaven forgive that thought, the while 285 

Which made me both to weep and smile — 
I sometimes deemed that it might be 
My brother's soul come down to me ; 
But then at last away it flew. 

And then 't was mortal, well I knew, 290 

For he would never thus have flown, 
And left me twice so doubly lone, — 
Lone — as the corse within its shroud, 
Lone — as a solitary cloud, 

A single cloud on a sunny day 295 

While all the rest of heaven is clear, 
A frown upon the atmosphere. 
That hath no business to appear 

When skies are blue and earth is gay. 

A kind of change came in my fate. 300 

My keepers grew compassionate; 



138 ENGLISH POEMS 



I know not what had made them so, 

They were inured to sights of woe, 

But so it was : — my broken chain 

With links unfastened did remain, 305 

And it was liberty to stride 

Along my cell from side to side, 

And up and down, and then athwart. 

And tread it over every part. 

And round the pillars one by one, 310 

Returning where my walk begun. 

Avoiding only, as I trod. 

My brothers' graves without a sod ; 

For if I thought with heedless tread 

My step profaned their lowly bed, 315 

My breath came gaspingly and thick, 

And my crushed heart fell blind and sick. 

I made a footing in the wall : 

It was not therefrom to escape, 
For I had buried one and all 320 

Who loved me in a human shape. 
And the whole earth would henceforth be 
A wider prison unto me; 
No child — no sire — no kin had I, 
No partner in my misery; 325 

I thought of this, and I was glad, 
For thought of them had made me mad ; — 
But I was curious to ascend 
To my barred windows, and to bend 
Once more, upon the mountains high, 330 

The quiet of a loving eye. 

I saw them — and they were the same. 

They were not changed like me in frame; 

I saw their thousand years of snow 

On high — their wide long lake below, 335 

And the blue Rhone in fullest flow ; 

I heard the torrents leap and gush 

O'er channelled rock and broken bush; 

I saw the white-walled distant town. 

And whiter sails go skimming down: 340 

And then there was a little isle. 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 



139 



Which in my very face did smile, 

The only one in view ; 
A small green isle, it seemed no more, 
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor, 345 

But in it there were three tall trees, 
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze. 
And by it there were waters flowing, 
And on it there were young flowers growing, 

Of gentle breath and hue. 350 

The fish swam by the castle wall, 
And they seemed joyous each and all; 
The eagle rode the rising blast, 
Methought he never flew so fast 

As then to me he seemed to fly; 355 

And then new tears came in my eye. 
And I felt troubled — and would fain 
I had not left my recent chain; 
And when I did descend again. 

The darkness of my dim abode 360 

Fell on me as a heavy load; 
It was as is a new-dug grave. 
Closing o'er one we sought to save, — 
And yet my glance, too much oppressed. 
Had almost need of such a rest. 365 

It might be months, or years, or days — 

I kept no count, I took no note; 
I had no hope my eyes to raise. 

And clear them of their dreary mote: 
At last men came to set me free ; 370 

I asked not why, and recked not where ; 
It was at length the same to me. 
Fettered or fetterless to be; 

I learned to love despair. 
And thus when they appeared at last, 375 

And all my bonds aside were cast. 
These heavy walls to me had grown 
A hermitage — and all my own ! 
And half I felt as they were come 
To tear me from a second home : 380 

With spiders I had friendship made, 



140 ENGLISH POEMS 



And watched them in their sullen trade; 

Had seen the mice by moonlight play, 

And why should I feel less than they? 

We were all inmates of one place, 385 

And I, the monarch of each race, 

Had power to kill — yet, strange to tell ! 

In quiet we had learned to dwell; 

My very chains and I grew friends, 

So much a long communion tends 390 

To make us what we are: — even I 

Regained my freedom with a sigh. 

1816. 1816. 



TO THOMAS MOORE 

My boat is on the shore, 

And my bark is on the sea ; 
But before I go, Tom Moore, 

Here's a double health to thee! 

Here 's a sigh to those who love me, 5 

And a smile to those who hate; 
And whatever sky 's above me. 

Here 's a heart for every fate. 

Though the ocean roar around me, 

Yet it still shall bear me on ; 10 

Though a desert should surround me. 

It hath springs that may be won. 

Were 't the last drop in the well, 

As I gasped upon the brink. 
Ere my fainting spirit fell, 15 

'T is to thee that I would drink. 

With that water, as this wine. 

The libation I would pour 
Should be — Peace with thine and mine. 

And a health to thee, Tom Moore! 20 

1816-17. 1821. 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 



141 



CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE 
(From Canto I) 

SPAIN 

Oh, lovely Spain ! renowned, romantic land ! 
Where is that standard which Pelagio bore. 
When Cava's traitor-sire first called the band 
That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore? 
Where are those bloody banners which of yore 5 

Waved o'er thy sons, victorious to the gale. 
And drove at last the spoilers to their shore? 
Red gleamed the cross, and waned the crescent pale, 
While Afric's echoes thrilled with Moorish matrons' wail. 

Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale? 10 

Ah such, alas, the hero's amplest fate ! 
When granite moulders and when records fail, 
A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date. 
Pride ! bend thine eye from heaven to thine estate. 
See how the mighty shrink into a song! 15 

Can volume, pillar, pile, preserve thee great? 
Or must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue, 
When Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does thee 
wrong ? 

Awake, ye sons of Spain ! awake ! advance ! 
Lo, Chivalry, your ancient goddess, cries; 20 

But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance. 
Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the skies : 
Now on the smoke of blazing bolts she flies. 
And speaks in thunder through yon engine's roar; 
In every peal she calls — "Awake ! arise !" 25 

Say, is her voice more feeble than of yore. 
When her war-song was heard on Andalusia's shore? 

Hark! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note? 

Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath? 

Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote, 30 

Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath 

Tyrants and tyrants' slaves? — the fires of death, 

The bale-fires, flash on high ; — from rock to rock 

Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe; 



142 ENGLISH POEMS 



Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc, 35 

Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock. 

Lo, where the Giant on the mountain stands, 
His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun, 
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands. 
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon; 40 

Restless it rolls, now fixed, and now anon 
Flashing afar, — and at his iron feet 
Destruction cowers, to mark what deeds are done; 
For on this morn three potent nations meet. 
To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet. 45 

By Heaven ! it is a splendid sight to see 
(For one who hath no friend, no brother, there) 
Their rival scarfs of mixed embroidery. 
Their various arms that glitter in the air! 
What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair, 50 
And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey ! 
All join the chase, but few the triumph share; 
The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away. 
And Havoc scarce for joy can number their array. 

Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice; 55 

Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high; 
Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies; 
The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory! 
The foe, the victim, and the fond ally 
That fights for all, but ever fights in vain, 60 

Are met — as if at home they could not die — 
To feed the crow on Talavera's plain. 
And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain. 

There shall they rot — Ambition's honoured fools ! 
Yes, Honour decks the turf that wraps their clay ! 65 

Vain sophistry! in these behold the tools. 
The broken tools, that tyrants cast away 
By myriads, when they dare to pave their way 
With human hearts — to what? a dream alone. 
Can despots compass aught that hails their sway? 70 

Or call with truth one span of earth their own. 
Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone? 
iSog. 1812. 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 143 

(From Canto II) 

G?EECE 

Fair Greece ! sad relic of departed worth ! 
Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great! 
Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, 
And long accustomed bondage uncreate? 
Not such thy sons who whilome did await, 5 

The hopeless warriors of a willing doom. 
In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait — 
Oh, who that gallant spirit shall resume. 
Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb? 

When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood, 10 

When Thebes Epaminondas rears again. 
When Athens' children are with hearts endued. 
When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men. 
Then may'st thou be restored; but not till then. 
A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; 15 

An hour may lay it in the dust; and when 
Can man its shattered splendour renovate. 
Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate! 

And yet how lovely in thine age of woe. 
Land of lost gods and godlike men, art thou ! 20 

Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow, 
Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite now. 
Thy fanes, thy temples, to thy surface bow. 
Commingling slowly with heroic earth. 
Broke by the share of every rustic plough: 2$ 

So perish monuments of mortal birth, 
So perish all in turn, save well-recorded worth; 

Save where some solitary column mourns 
Above its prostrate brethren of the cave; 
Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns 30 

Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave; 
Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave, 
Where the grey stones and unmolested grass 
Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave, 

While strangers only not regardless pass, 35 

Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh "Alas !" 



144 ENGLISH POEMS 



Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild, 
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, 
Thine olive ripe, as when Minerva smiled, 
And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields ; 40 

There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, 
The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain-air; 
Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds. 
Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare; 
Art, Glory, Freedom, fail, but Nature still is fair. 45 

Where'er we tread 't is haunted, holy ground ; 
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould. 
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, 
And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, 
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold 50 

The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon. 
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold, 
Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone; 
Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares grey Marathon. • 

The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same: 55 

Unchanged in all except its foreign lord, 
Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame 
The battle-field where Persia's victim horde 
First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword. 
As on the morn to distant Glory dear, 60 

When Marathon became a magic word; 
Which uttered, to the hearer's eye appear 
The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career; 

The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow; 
The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear; 65 

Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's, plain below; 
Death in the front, Destruction in the rear : 
Such was the scene — what now remaineth here? 
What sacred trophy marks the hallowed ground. 
Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear? 70 

The rifled urn, the violated mound. 
The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger, spurns around. 

Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past 
Shall pilgrims, pensive but unwearied, throng; 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 145 

Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast, 75 

Hail the bright clime of battle and of song; 
Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue 
Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore; 
Boast of the aged ! lesson of the young ! 
Which sages venerate and bards adore, 80 

As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore. 
J810-1814. 1812, 1814. 

(From Canto III) 

BYRON AND CHILDE HAROLD 

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child ! 
Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart? 
When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled. 
And then we parted, — not as now we part. 
But with a hope. — 

j\waking with a start, 5 

The waters heave around me; and on high 
The winds lift up their voices : I depart, 
Whither I know not ; but the hour 's gone by. 
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine 
eye. 

Once more upon the waters ! yet once more ! 10 

And the waves bound beneath me as a steed 
That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar! 
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead ! 
Though the strained mast should quiver as a reed, 
And the rent canvas, fluttering, strew the gale, 15 

Still must I on, for I am as a weed. 
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail 
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail. 

In my youth's summer I did sing of one. 
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind; 20 

Again I seize the theme, then but begun, 
And bear it with me, as the rushing wind 
Bears the cloud onwards. In that tale I find 
The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears. 
Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, 25 

O'er which all heavily the journeying years 
Plod the last sands of life, where not a flower appears. 



146 ENGLISH POEMS 



Since my young days of passion — joy or pain — 
Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string, 
And both may jar; it may be that in vain 30 

I would essay as I have sung to sing. 
Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling : 
So that it wean me from the weary dream 
Qf selfish grief or gladness, so it fling 
Forgetfulness around me, it shall seem 35 

To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme. 

He who, grown aged in this world of woe, 
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, 
So that no wonder waits him; nor below 
Can love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife, 40 

Cut to his heart again with the keen knife 
Of silent, sharp endurance, — he can tell 
Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife 
With airy images, and shapes which dwell 
Still unimpaired, though old, in the soul's haunted cell. 45 

'T is to create, and in creating live 
A being more intense, that we endow 
With form our fancy, gaining as we give 
The life we image, even as I do now. 
What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou, 50 

Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth, 
Invisible but gazing, as I glow 
Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth. 
And feeling still with thee in my crushed feelings' dearth. 

Yet must I think less wildly: — I have thought 55 

Too long and darkly, till my brain became, 
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, 
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame; 
And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame, 
My springs of life were poisoned. 'T is too late ! 60 

Yet am I changed; though still enough the same 
In strength to bear what time can not abate. 
And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate. 

Something too much of this : — but now 't is past, 

And the spell closes with its silent seal. 65 

Long absent Harold reappears at last, 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 147 

He of the breast which fain no more would feel, 
Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal ; 
Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him 
In soul and aspect as in age: years steal 70 

Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb; 
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. 

His had been quaffed too quickly, and he found 
The dregs were wormwood; but he filled again, 
And from a purer fount, on holier ground, 75 

And deemed its spring perpetual — but in vain ! 
Still round him clung invisibly a chain 
Which galled forever, fettering though unseen. 
And heavy though it clanked not ; worn with pain, 
Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, 80 

Entering with every step he took through many a scene. 

Secure in guarded coldness, he had mixed 
Again in fancied safety with his kind, 
And deemed his spirit now so firmly fixed 
And sheathed with an invulnerable mind, 85 

That, if no joy, no sorrow lurked behind; 
And he, as one, might 'midst the many stand 
Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find 
Fit speculation, such as in strange land 
He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand. 90 

But who can view the ripened rose, nor seek 
To wear it? Who can curiously behold 
The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek, 
Nor feel the heart can never all grow old? 
Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold 95 
The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb? 
Harold, once more within the vortex, rolled 
On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, 
Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime. 

But soon he knew himself the most unfit 100 

Of men to herd with man, with whom he held 

Little in common ; untaught to submit 

His thoughts to others, though his soul was quelled 

In youth by his own thoughts ; still uncompelled. 

He would not yield dominion of his mind 105 



148 ENGLISH POEMS 



To spirits against whom his own rebelled, 
Proud though in desolation, which could find 
A life within itself, to breathe without mankind. 

Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends ; 
Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home; no 

Where a blue sky and glowing clime extends. 
He had the passion and the power to roam. 
The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, 
Were unto him companionship; they spake 
A mutual language, clearer than the tome 115 

Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake 
For Nature's pages glassed by sunbeams on the lake. 

Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars. 
Till he had peopled them with beings bright 
As their own beams; and earth, and earth-born jars, 120 
And human frailties, were forgotten quite. 
Could he have kept his spirit to that flight, 
He had been happy; but this clay will sink 
Its spark immortal, envying it the light 
To which it mounts as if to break the link 125 

That keeps us from yon heaven which wooes us to its brink. 

But in man's dwellings he became a thing 
Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome. 
Drooped as a wild-born falcon with dipt wing, 
To whom the boundless air alone were home. 130 

Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome, 
As eagerly the barred-up bird will beat 
His breast and beak against his wiry dome 
Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat 
Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat. 135 

Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again. 
With naught of hope left, but with less of gloom; 
The very knowledge that he lived in vain, 
That all was over on this side the tomb, 
Had made Despair a smilingness assume, 140 

Which, though 't were wild — as on the plundered wreck 
When mariners would madly meet their doom 
With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck, — 
Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check. 
1816. t8i6. 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 149 

WATERLOO 

Stop ! for thy tread is on an Empire's dust ! 
An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below ! 
Is the spot marked with no colossal bust, 
No column trophied for triumphal show? 
None ; but the moral's truth tells simpler so : 5 

As the ground was before, thus let it be; — 
How that red rain hath made the harvest grow ! 
And is this all the world has gained by thee. 
Thou first and last of fields, king-making victory? 

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls, 10 

The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo. 
How in an hour the Power which gave annuls 
Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too ! 
In "pride of place" here last the Eagle flew. 
Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain, 15 

Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through; 
Ambition's life and labours all were vain — 
He wears the shattered links of the world's broken chain. 

Fit retribution ! Gaul may champ the bit 
And foam in fetters ; — but is Earth more free ? 20 

Did nations combat to make one submit, 
Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty? 
What ! shall reviving Thraldom again be 
The patched-up idol of enlightened days? 
Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we 25 

Pay the Wolf homage, proffering lowly gaze 
And servile knees to thrones ? No ! prove before ye praise ! 

If not, o'er one fallen despot boast no more ! 
In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tears 
For Europe's flowers long rooted up before 30 

The trampler of her vineyards ; in vain years 
Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears, 
Have all been borne, and broken by the accord 
Of roused-up millions : all that most endears 
Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword 35 

Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord. 

There was a sound of revelry by night. 
And Belgium's capital had gathered then 
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright 



ISO 



ENGLISH POEMS 



The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; 40 

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when 
Music arose with its voluptuous swell, 
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, 
And all went merry as a marriage-bell — 
But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell ! 45 

Did ye not hear it? No; 'twas but the wind. 
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street. 
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; 
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet 
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet — 50 

But hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more, 
As if the clouds its echo would repeat; 
And nearer, clearer, deadlier, than before! 
Arm! arm! it is — it is — the cannon's opening roar! 

Within a windowed niche of that high hall 55 

Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear 
That sound the first amidst the festival. 
And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear; 
And when they smiled because he deemed it near. 
His heart more truly knew that peal too well 60 

Which stretched his father on a bloody bier. 
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell : 
He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell. 

Ah, then and there was hurrying to and fro. 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 65 

And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago 
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness; 
And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs 
Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess 70 

If ever more should meet those mutual eyes. 
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise? 

And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed. 

The mustering squadron, and the clattering car 

Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, 75 

And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; 

And the deep thunder, peal on peal afar. 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 151 

And, near, the beat of the alarming drum, 
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; 
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, 80 

Or whispering, with white lips — "The foe! they come! 
they come !" 

And wild and high the "Cameron's Gathering" rose! 
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills 
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes. 
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, 85 

Savage and shrill ! But with the breath which fills 
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers 
With the fierce native daring which instils 
The stirring memory of a thousand years. 
And Evan's, Donald's, fame rings in each clansman's ears ! 90 

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, 
Dewy with nature's tear-drops, as they pass. 
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, 
Over the unreturning brave, — alas. 

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass 95 

Which now beneath them, but above shall grow 
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass 
Of living valour, rolling on the foe 
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low. 

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, 100 

Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay; 
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, 
The morn the marshalling in arms, the day 
Battle's magnificently stern array! 

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent, 105 

The earth is covered thick with other clay, 
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent. 
Rider and horse — friend, foe — in one red burial blent! 
1816. 1816. 



LAKE LEMAN IN CALM AND STORM 

Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake. 
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing 
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake 



152 ENGLISH POFMS 



Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. 
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 5 

To waft me from distraction : once I loved 
Torn Ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring 
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved 
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. 

It is the hush of night, and all between 10 

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, 
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, 
Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear 
Precipitously steep ; and drawing near. 
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, 15 
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear 
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, 
Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more. 

He is an evening reveller, who makes 
His life an infancy, and sings his fill; 20 

At intervals, some bird from out the brakes 
Starts into voice a moment, then is still. 
There seems a floating whisper on the hill; 
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews 
All silently their tears of love instil, 25 

Weeping themselves away, till they infuse 
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. 

Ye stars ! which are the poetry of heaven ! 
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate 
Of men and empires, 't is to be forgiven 30 

That in our aspirations to be great 
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state. 
And claim a kindred with you; for ye are 
A beauty and a mystery, and create 

In us such love and reverence from afar 35 

That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a 
star. 

All heaven and earth are still — though not in sleep. 

But breathless as we grow when feeling most. 

And silent as we stand in thoughts too deep. 

All heaven and earth are still : from the high host 40 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 153 

Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast, 
All is concentered in a life intense, 
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, 
But hath a part of Being, and a sense 
Of that which is of all Creator and Defence. 45 

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt 
In solitude, where we are least alone; 
A truth, which through our being then doth melt 
And purifies from self: it is a tone, 

The soul and source of music, which makes known 50 
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm 
Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, 
Binding all things with beauty ; — 't would disarm 
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. 

Not vainly did the early Persian make 55 

His altar the high places and the peak 
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take 
A fit and unwalled temple, there to seek 
The Spirit in Whose honour shrines are weak, 
Upreared of human hands. Come, and compare 60 

Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, 
With Nature's- realms of worship, earth and air. 
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer! 

The sky is changed ! — and such a change ! Oh night. 
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 65 

Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along, 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among. 
Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one lone cloud, 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue; 70 

And Jura answers, through her misty shroud. 
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! 

And this is in the night: — most glorious night! 

Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be 

A sharer in thy fierce and far delight — 75 

A portion of the tempest and of thee ! 

How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea. 

And the big rain comes dancing to the earth ! 

And now again 't is black, — and now the glee 



154 ENGLISH POEMS 



Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, 80 

As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. 

Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way betv/een 
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted 
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene 
That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted; 85 
Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, 
Love was the very root of the fond rage 
Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed ; 
Itself expired, but leaving them an age 
Of years all winters, war within themselves to wage; — 90 

Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, 
The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand — 
For here, not one, but many, make their play, 
And fling their thunderbolts from hand to hand, 
Flashing and cast around; — of all the band, 95 

The brightest through these parted hills hath forked 
His lightnings, — as if he did understand 
That in such gaps as desolation worked 
There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked. 

Sky, mountains, rivers, winds, lake, lightnings! ye 100 
With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul 
To make these felt and feeling, well may be 
Things that have made me watchful: the far roll 
Of your departing voices is the knoll 
Of what in me is sleepless — if I rest. 105 

But where of ye, oh tempests ! is the goal ? 
Are ye like those within the human breast? 
Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest? 

Could I embody and unbosom now 

That which is most within me, — could I wreak no 

My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw 
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak. 
All that I would have sought, and all I. seek. 
Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe, into one word, 
And that one word were Lightning, I would speak; 115 
But as it is, I live and die unheard, 
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. 
j8i6. 1816. 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 155 

(From Canto IV) 

VENICE 

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs, 
A palace and a prison on each hand ; 
I saw from out the wave her structures rise 
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand; 
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand 5 

Around me, and a dying glory smiles 
O'er the far times when many a subject land 
Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles. 
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles. 

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, 10 

Rising with her tiara of proud towers 
At airy distance, with majestic motion, 
A ruler of the waters and their powers : 
And such she was ; her daughters had their dowers 
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 15 

Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers ; 
In purple was she robed, and of her feast 
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased. 

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more. 
And silent rows the songless gondolier; 20 

Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 
And music meets not always now the ear. 
Those days are gone — but Beauty still is here: 
States fall, arts fade, — but Nature doth not die. 
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, 25 

The pleasant place of all festivity. 
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy ! 
1817. 1818. 

ROME AND FREEDOM 

Oh Rome ! my country ! city of the soul ! 

The orphans of the heart must turn to thee, 

Lone mother of dead empires ! and control 

In their shut breasts their petty misery. 

What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see 5 

The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 

O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, ye 



156 ENGLISH POEMS 



Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
A. world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. 

The Niobe of nations ! there she stands, 10 

Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe, 
An empty urn within her withered hands. 
Whose holy dust was scattered long ago : 
The Scipio's tomb contains no ashes now; 
The very sepulchres lie tenantless 15 

Of their heroic dwellers. Dost thou flow. 
Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? 
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. 

The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire 
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled city's pride; 20 

She saw her glories star by star expire, 
And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride. 
Where the car chmbed the Capitol; far and wide 
Temple and tower went down, nor left a site : — 
Chaos of ruins ! who shall trace the void, 25 

O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light. 
And say here was, or is, where all is doubly night? 



And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome, 
She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart 
The milk of conquest yet within the dome 30 

Where, as a monument of antique art. 
Thou standest; mother of the mighty heart. 
Which the great founder sucked from thy wild teat, 
Scorched by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart, 
And thy limbs black with lightning, — dost thou yet 35 

Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget ? 

Thou dost; but all thy foster-babes are dead — 
The men of iron; and the world hath reared 
Cities from out their sepulchres; men bled 
In imitation of the things they feared, 40 

And fought and conquered, and the same course steered. 
At apish distance; but as yet none have 
Nor could the same supremacy have neared^ 
Save one vain man, who is not in the grave. 
But, vanquished by himself, to his own slaves a slave — 45 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 157 

The fool of false dominion, and a kind 
Of bastard Caesar, following him of old 
With steps unequal ; for the Roman's mind 
Was modelled in a less terrestrial mould, 
With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold, 50 

And an immortal instinct which redeemed 
The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold, 
Alcides with the distaff now he seemed 
At Cleopatra's feet, — and now himself he beamed, 

And came — and saw — and conquered ! But the man 55 
Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee. 
Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van, 
Which he, in sooth, long led to victory, 
With a deaf heart which never seemed to be 
A listener to itself, was strangely framed : 60 

With but one weakest weakness — vanity, — 
Coquettish in ambition, still he aimed — 
At what? can he avouch, or answer what he claimed? — 

And would be all or nothing, nor could wait 
For the sure grave to level him; few years 65 

Had fixed him with the Caesars in his fate, 
On whom we tread: — for this the conqueror rears 
The arch of triumph ! and for this the tears 
And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed, 
An universal deluge, which appears 70 

Without an ark for wretched man's abode. 
And ebbs but to reflow! — Renew thy rainbow, God! 

What from this barren being do we reap? 
Our senses narrow, and our reason frail, 
Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, 75 

And all things weighed in custom's falsest scale; 
Opinion an omnipotence, — whose veil 
Mantles the earth with darkness, until right 
And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale 
Lest their own judgments should become too bright, 80 
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too 
much light. 

And thus they plod in sluggish misery. 
Rotting from sire to son, and age to age, 



158 ENGLISH POEMS 



Proud of their trampled nature, and so die, 
Bequeathing their hereditary rage 85 

To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage 
War for their chains, and, rather than be free, 
Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage 
Within the same arena where they see 
Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree. 90 

I speak not of men's creeds — they rest between 
Man and his Maker — but of things allowed. 
Averred, and known, and daily, hourly seen : — 
The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed. 
And the intent of tyranny avowed, 95 

The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown 
The apes of him who humbled once the proud. 
And shook them from their slumbers on the throne — 
Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done. 

Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be, 100 

And Freedom find no champion and no child 
Such as Columbia saw arise when she 
Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled? 
Or must such minds be nourished in the wild. 
Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar 105 

Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled 
On infant Washington? Has Earth no more 
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore? 

But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime, 
And fatal have her Saturnalia been no 

To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime; 
Because the deadly days which we have seen. 
And vile Ambition, that built up between 
Man and his hopes an adamantine wall. 
And the base pageant last upon the scene, 115 

Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall 
Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst, his second, 
fall. 

Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn but flying. 
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind; 
Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying, 120 
The loudest still the tempest leaves behind; 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 159 

Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind,. 
Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth, 
But the sap lasts, and still the seed we find 
Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North : 125 

So shall a better Spring less bitter fruit bring forth. 
1817. 1818. 

THE OCEAN 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society, where none intrudes. 
By the deep sea, and music in its roar: 
I love not man the less, but Nature more, S 

From these our interviews, in which I steal 
From all I may be, or have been before. 
To mingle with the Universe and feel 
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll ! 10 

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; 
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain 
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 15 

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain. 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan. 
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. 

His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields 
Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise 20 

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields 
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise. 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies. 
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies 25 

His petty hope in some near port or bay. 
And dashest him again to earth: — there let him lay. 

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 

Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, 

And monarchs tremble in their capitals; 30 

The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 

Their clay creator the vain title take 



l6o ENGLISH POEMS 



Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war, — 
These are thy toys, and as the snowy flake 
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar 35 

Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. 

Thy shores are empires changed in all save thee — 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? 
Thy waters washed them power while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey 40 

The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay 
Has dried up realms to deserts : — not so thou, 
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play; 
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow — 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou roUest now. 45 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 
Glasses itself in tempests ; in all time, 
Calm or convulsed — in breeze, or gale, or storm, — 
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 

Dark-heaving, — boundless, endless, and sublime — 50 

The image of Eternity — the throne 
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime 
The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone 
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy 55 

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy 
I wantoned with thy breakers — they to me 
Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea 
Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear, 60 

For I was, as it were, a child of thee, 
And trusted to thy billows far and near, 
And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. 
1817-18. 1818. 

DON JUAN 
(From Canto II) 

THE SHIPWRECK 

The ship was evidently settling now 

Fast by the head; and, all distinction gone, 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON i6i 

Some went to prayers again, and made a vow 
Of candles to their saints — but there were none 

To pay them with; and some looked o'er the bow, S 

Some hoisted out the boats; and there was one 

That begged Pedrillo for an absolution. 

Who told him to be damned — in his confusion. 

Some lashed them in their hammocks; some put on 

Their best clothes, as if going to a fair; lo 

Some cursed the day on which they saw the sun, 

And gnashed their teeth, and, howling, tore their hair ; 

And others went on as they had begun. 
Getting the boats out, being well aware 

That a tight boat will live in a rough sea, 15 

Unless with breakers close beneath her lee. 

The worst of all was that in their condition, 
Having been several days in great distress, 

'T was difficult to get out such provision 

As now might render their long suffering less — 20 

Men, even when dying, dislike inanition; 

Their stock was damaged by the weather's stress : 

Two casks of biscuit, and a keg of butter. 

Were all that could be thrown into the cutter. 

But in the long-boat they contrived to stow 25 

Some pounds of bread, though injured by the wet; 

Water, a twenty-gallon cask or so ; 

Six flasks of wine : and they contrived to get 

A portion of their beef up from below. 

And with a piece of pork, moreover, met, 30 

But scarce enough to serve them for a luncheon — 

Then there was rum, eight gallons in a puncheon. 

The other boats, the yawl and pinnace, had 

Been stove in the beginning of the gale; 
And the long-boat's condition was but bad, 35 

As there were but two blankets for a sail. 
And one oar for a mast, which a young lad 

Threw in by good luck over the ship's rail; 
And two boats could not hold, far less be stored, 
To save one half the people then on board. 40 



l62 ENGLISH POEMS 



'T was twilight, and the sunless day went down 

Over the waste of waters ; like a veil, 
Which if withdrawn would but disclose the frown 

Of one whose hate is masked but to assail. 
Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown, 45 

And grimly darkled o'er the faces pale, 
And the dim desolate deep : twelve days had Fear 
Been their familiar, and now Death was here. 

Some trial had been making at a raft. 

With little hope in such a rolling sea, 50 

A sort of thing at which one would have laughed, 

If any laughter at such times could be. 
Unless with people who too much have quaffed. 

And have a kind of wild and horrid glee, 
Half epileptical and half hysterical : — 55 

Their preservation would have been a miracle. 

At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hencoops, spars, 
And all things for a chance, had been cast loose, 

That still could keep afloat the struggling tars. 

For yet they strove, although of no great use. 60 

There was no light in heaven but a few stars; 

The boats put off o'ercrowded with their crews; 

She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port. 

And, going down head foremost — sunk, in short. 

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell — 65 

Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave — 

Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell, 
As eager to anticipate their grave. 

And the sea yawned around her like a hell. 

And down she sucked with her the whirling wave, 70 

Like one who grapples with his enemy, 

And strives to strangle him before he die. 

And first one universal shriek there rushed. 

Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash 
Of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed, 75 

Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash 
Of billows; but at intervals there gushed, 

Accompanied with a convulsive splash, 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 163 

A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry 

Of some strong swimmer in his agony. So 

The boats, as stated, had got off before, 

And in them crowded several of the crew ; 

And yet their present hope was hardly more 
Than what it had been, for so strong it blew 

There was slight chance of reaching any shore; 85 

And then they were too many, though so few — 

Nine in the cutter, thirty in the boat. 

Were counted in them when they got afloat. 

As they drew nigh the land, which now was seen 

Unequal in its aspect here and there, 90 

They felt the freshness of its growing green, 

That waved in forest-tops, and smoothed the air. 

And fell upon their glazed eyes like a screen 

From glistening waves and skies so hot and bare — 

Lovely seemed any object that should sweep 95 

Away the vast, salt, dread, eternal deep. 

The shore looked wild, without a trace of man. 

And girt by formidable waves; but they 
Were mad for land, and thus their course they ran, 

Though right ahead the roaring breakers lay: 100 

A reef between them also now began 

To show its boiling surf and bounding spray; 
But finding no place for their landing better. 
They ran the boat for shore — and overset her. 

But in his native stream, the Guadalquivir, 105 

Juan to lave his youthful limbs was wont; 

And having learnt to swim in that sweet river, 
Had often turned the art to some account : 

A better swimmer you could scarce see ever; 

He could, perhaps, have passed the Hellespont, no 

As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) 

Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did. 

So here, though faint, emaciated, and stark, 

He buoyed his boyish limbs, and strove to ply 



1 64 ENGLISH POEMS 



With the quick wave, and gain, ere it was dark, 115 

The beach which lay before him, high and dry. 

The greatest danger here was from a shark, 
That carried off his neighbour by the thigh; 

As for the other two they could not swim, 

So nobody arrived on shore but him. 120 

Nor yet had he arrived but for the oar, 

Which, providentially for him, was washed 
Just as his feeble arms could strike no more, 

And the hard wave o'erwhelmed him as 't was dashed 
Within his grasp ; he clung to it, and sore 125 

The waters beat while he thereto was lashed. 
At last, with swimming, wading, scrambling, he 
Rolled on the beach, half senseless from the sea. 

There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung 

Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave, 130 

From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung, 
Should suck him back to her insatiate grave. 

And there he lay, full length, where he was flung, 
Before the entrance of a cliff-worn cave, 

With just enough of life to feel its pain, 135 

And deem that it was saved, perhaps, in vain. 

With slow and staggering effort he arose. 

But sunk again upon his bleeding knee 
And quivering hand; and then he looked for those 

Who long had been his mates upon the sea; 140 

But none of them appeared to share his woes, 

Save one, a corpse from out the famished three. 
Who died two days before, and now had found 
An unknown barren beach for burial ground. 

And as he gazed, his dizzy brain spun fast, 145 

And down he sunk; and as he sunk, the sand 

Swam round and round, and all his senses passed; 
He fell upon his side, and his stretched hand 

Drooped dripping on the oar (their jury-mast). 

And, like a withered lily, on the land 150 

His slender frame and pallid aspect lay, 

As fair a thing as e'er was formed of clay. 

1819. ' 1819. 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 165 

JUAN AND HAIDEE 

And thus a moon rolled on, and fair Haidee 

Paid daily visits to her boy, and took 
Such plentiful precautions that still he 

Remained unknown within his craggy nook. 
At last her father's prows put out to sea, 5 

For certain merchantmen upon the look. 
Not as of yore to carry off an lo. 
But three Ragusan vessels, bound for Scio. 

Then came her freedom, for she had no mother, 

So that, her father being at sea, she was 10 

Free as a married woman, or such other 
Female as where she likes may freely pass, 

Without even the incumbrance of a brother. 
The freest she that ever gazed on glass : — 

I speak of Christian lands in this comparison, 15 

Where wives, at least, are seldom kept in garrison. 

Now she prolonged her visits and her talk 

(For they must talk), and he had learnt to say 

So much as to propose to take a walk; 

For little had he wandered since the day 20 

On which, like a young flower snapped from the stalk. 
Drooping and dewy on the beach he lay. 

And thus they walked out in the afternoon. 

And saw the sun set opposite the moon. 

It was a wild and breaker-beaten coast, , 25 

With cliffs above, and a broad sandy shore. 

Guarded by shoals and rocks as by an host. 

With here and there a creek, whose aspect wore 

A better welcome to the tempest-tost; 

And rarely ceased the haughty billow's roar, 30 

Save on the dead long summer days, which make 

The outstretched ocean glitter like a lake. 

And the small ripple spilt upon the beach 

Scarcely o'erpassed the cream of your champagne. 

When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, 35 

That spring-dew of the spirit ! the heart's rain ! 



1 66 ENGLISH POEMS 



Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach 

Who please — the more because they preach in vain; — 
Let us have wine and woman, mirth and laughter, 
Sermons and soda-water the day after. 40 

Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; 

The best of life is but intoxication: 
Glory, the grape, love, gold, in these are sunk 

The hopes of all men, and of every nation; 
Without their sap, how branchless were the trunk 45 

Of life's strange tree, so fruitful on occasion! 
But to return — get very drunk; and when 
You wake with headache, you shall see what then. 

Ring for your valet — bid him quickly bring 

Some hock and soda-water, then you '11 know 50 

A pleasure worthy Xerxes, the great king; 

For not the blest sherbet, sublimed with snow, 
Nor the first sparkle of the desert-spring. 

Nor Burgundy in all its sunset glow, 
After long travel, ennui, love, or slaughter, 55 

Vie with that draught of hock and soda-water. 

The coast — I think it was the coast that I 

Was just describing — yes, it was the coast — 

Lay at this period quiet as the sky. 

The sands untumbled, the blue waves untost; 60 

And all was stillness, save the sea-bird's cry. 
And dolphin's leap, and little billow crost 

By some low rock or shelve, that made it fret 

Against the boundary it scarcely wet. 

And forth they wandered, her sire being gone, 65 

As I have said, upon an expedition; 
And mother, brother, guardian, she had none. 

Save Zoe, who, although with due precision 
She waited on her lady with the sun. 

Thought daily service was her only mission, 70 

Bringing warm water, wreathing her long tresses. 
And asking now and then for cast-off dresses. 

It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded 
Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill. 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 167 

Which then seems as if the whole earth it bounded, 75 

Circhng all Nature, hushed, and dim, and still, 

With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded 
On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill 

Upon the other, and the rosy sky, 

With one star sparkling through it like an eye. 80 

And thus they wandered forth, and hand in hand. 

Over the shining pebbles and the shells, 
Glided along the smooth and hardened sand, 

And in the worn and wild receptacles 
Worked by the storms, yet worked as it were planned, 85 

In hollow halls, with sparry roofs and cells. 
They turned to rest; and, each clasped by an arm. 
Yielded to the deep twilight's purple charm. 

They looked up to the sky, whose floating glow 

Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright; 90 

They gazed upon the glittering sea below, 

Whence the broad moon rose circling into sight; 

They heard the waves' splash, and the wind so low, 
And saw each other's dark eyes darting light 

Into each other — and beholding this, 95 

Their lips drew near and clung into a kiss. 

Alas, the love of women ! it is known 

To be a lovely and a fearful thing; 
For all of theirs upon that die is thrown. 

And if 't is lost, life hath no more to bring loo 

To them but mockeries of the past alone. 

And their revenge is as the tiger's spring. 
Deadly and quick and crushing; yet, as real 
Torture is theirs, what they inflict they feel. 

They are right; for man, to man so oft unjust, 105 

Is always so to women; one sole bond 
Awaits them, treachery is all their trust; 

Taught to conceal, their bursting hearts despond 
Over their idol, till some wealthier lust 

Buys them in marriage — and what rests beyond? no 

A thankless husband, next a faithless lover. 
Then dressing, nursing, praying, and all 's over. 



1 68 ENGLISH POEMS 



Some take a lover, some take drams or prayers ; 

Some mind their household, others dissipation; 
Some run away, and but exchange their cares, 115 

Losing the advantage of a virtuous station; 
Few changes e'er can better their affairs, 

Theirs being an unnatural situation, 
From the dull palace to the dirty hovel; 
Some play the devil, and then write a novel. 120 

Haidee was Nature's bride, and knew not this ; 

Haidee was Passion's child, born where the sun 
Showers triple light, and scorches even the kiss 

Of his gazelle-eyed daughters ; she was one 
Made but to love, to feel that she was his 125 

Who was her chosen — what was said or done 
Elsewhere was nothing; she had naught to fear, 
Hope, care, nor love, beyond, — her heart beat here. 
1819. 1819. 

(From Canto XIV) 

THE SCEPTIC AND HIS POEM 

If from great Nature's or our own abyss 

Of thought we could but snatch a certainty, 

Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss — 
But then 't would spoil much good philosophy : 

One system eats another up, and this 5 

Much as old Saturn ate his progeny; 

For when his pious consort gave him stones 

In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones. 

But System doth reverse the Titan's breakfast. 

And eats her parents, albeit the digestion 10 

Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast. 
After due search, your faith to any question? 

Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fast 

You bind yourself and call some mode the best one. 

Nothing more true than not to trust your senses; 15 

And yet what are your other evidences? 

For me, I know naught ; nothing I deny — 
Admit — rej ect — contemn : and what know you, 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 169 

Except perhaps that you were born to die? 

And both may after all turn out untrue; 20 

An age may come, Font of Eternity, 

When nothing shall be either old or new. 
Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, 
And yet a third of life is passed in sleep. 

A sleep without dreams, after a rough day 25 

Of toil, is what we covet most ; and yet 
How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay! 

The very suicide that pays his debt 
At once without instalments (an old way 

Of paying debts, which creditors regret) 30 

Lets out impatiently his rushing breath. 
Less from disgust of life than dread of death. 

'T is round him, near him, here, there, everywhere ; 

And there 's a courage which grows out of fear. 
Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare 35 

The worst to know it : — when the mountains rear 
Their peaks beneath your human foot, and there 

You look down o'er the precipice, and drear 
The gulf of rock yawns, you can't gaze a minute 
Without an awful wish to plunge within it. 40 

'T is true, you don't — but, pale and struck with terror, 

Retire : but look into your past impression ! 
And you will find, though shuddering at the mirror 

Of your own thoughts, in all their self-confession, 
The lurking bias, be it truth or error, 45 

To the unknown; a secret prepossession. 
To plunge with all your fears — but where? You know not, 
And that 's the reason why you do — or do not. 

But what's this to the purpose? you will say. 

Gent, reader, nothing; a mere speculation, 50 

For which my sole excuse is — 't is my way. 

Sometimes with and sometimes without occasion 
I write what 's uppermost, without delay ; 

This narrative is not meant for narration, 
But a mere airy and fantastic basis, 55 

To build up common things with commonplaces. 



170 ENGLISH POEMS 



You know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith, 

"Fling up a straw, 't will show the way the wind blows" : 
And such a straw, borne on by human brea'h, 

Is poesy, according as the mind glows ; 60 

A paper kite which flies 'twixt life and death, 

A shadow which the onward soul behind throws; 
And mine 's a bubble, not blown up for praise. 
But just to play with, as an infant plays. 

The world is all before me — or behind : 65 

For I have seen a portion of that same, 
And quite enough for me to keep in mind; 

Of passions, too, I have proved enough to blame, 
To the great pleasure of our friends, mankind, 

Who like to mix some slight alloy with fame — 70 

For I was rather famous in my time. 
Until I fairly knocked it up with rhyme. 

I have brought this world about my ears, and eke 

The other ; that 's to say, the clergy, who 
Upon my head have bid their thunders break 75 

In pious libels by no means a few. 
And yet I can't help scribbling once a week. 

Tiring old readers, nor discovering new. 
In youth I wrote because my mind was full, 
And now because I feel it growing dull. 80 

1823. 1823. 

FROM 

THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 

The varlet was not an ill-favoured knave; 

A good deal like a vulture in the face. 
With a hook nose and a hawk's eye, which gave 

A smart and sharper-looking sort of grace 
To his whole aspect, which, though rather grave, 5 

Was by no means so ugly as his case; 
But that indeed was hopeless as can be. 
Quite a poetic felony "de se." 

Then Michael blew his trump, and stilled the noise 

With one still greater, as is yet the mode 10 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 171 

On earth besides ; except some grumbling voice, 
Which now and then will make a slight inroad 

Upon decorous silence, few will twice 

Lift up their lungs when fairly overcrowed; 

And now the bard could plead his own bad cause, 15 

With all the attitudes of self-applause. 

He said — I only give the heads — he said 

He meant no harm in scribbling ; 't was his way 

Upon all topics ; 't was, besides, his bread. 

Of which he buttered both sides ; 't would delay 20 

Too long the assembly (he was pleased to dread), 
And take up rather more time than a day, 

To name his works — he would but cite a few — 
"Wat Tyler" — "Rhymes on Blenheim" — "Waterloo." 

He had written praises of a regicide; 25 

He had written praises of all kings whatever; 

He had written for republics far and wide, 
And then against them bitterer than ever; 

For pantisocracy he once had cried 

Aloud, a scheme less moral than 'twas clever; 30 

Then grew a hearty anti- jacobin — 

Had turned his coat — and would have turned his skin. 

He had sung against all battles, and again 

In their high praise and glory; he had called 

Reviewing "the ungentle craft," and then 35 

Become as base a critic as e'er crawled — 

Fed, paid, and pampered by the very men 

By whom his muse and morals had been mauled; 

He had written much blank verse, and blanker prose, 

And more of both than anybody knows. 40 

He had written Wesley's life : — here turning round 
To Satan, "Sir, I 'm ready to write yours, 

In two octavo volumes, nicely bound. 

With notes and preface, all that most allures 

The pious purchaser ; and there 's no ground 45 

For fear, for I can choose my own reviewers ; 

So let me have the proper documents. 

That I may add you to my other saints." 



172 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Satan bowed, and was silent. "Well, if you. 

With amiable modesty, decline 50 

My offer, what says Michael? There are few 
Whose memoirs could be rendered more divine. 

Mine is a pen of all work; not so new 

As it was once, but I would make you shine 

Like your own trumpet. By the way, my own 55 

Has more of brass in it, and is as well blown. 

"But talking about trumpets, here's my 'Vision'! 

Now you shall judge, all people; yes, you shall 
Judge with my judgment, and by my decision 

Be guided who shall enter heaven or fall. 60 

I settle all these things by intuition. 

Times present, past, to come, heaven, hell, and all. 
Like King Alfonso. When I thus see double, 
I save the Deity some worlds of trouble." 

He ceased, and drew forth an MS. ; and no 65 

Persuasion on the part of devils, saints. 

Or angels, now could stop the torrent; so 

He read the first three lines of the contents; 

But at the fourth the whole spiritual show 

Had vanished, with variety of scents, 70 

Ambrosial and sulphureous, as they sprang, 

Like lightning, off from his "melodious twang." 

Those grand heroics acted as a spell; 

The angels stopped their ears and plied their pinions ; 
The devils ran howling, deafened, down to hell ; 75 

The ghosts fled, gibbering, for their own dominions 
(For 'tis not yet decided where they dwell. 

And I leave every man to his opinions) ; 
Michael took refuge in his trump — ^but, lo ! 
His teeth were set on edge, he could not blow ! 80 

Saint Peter, who has hitherto been known 
For an impetuous saint, upraised his keys. 

And at the fifth line knocked the poet down; 
Who fell like Phaeton, but more at ease. 

Into his lake, for there he did not drown ; 85 

A different web being by the Destinies 



GEORGE GORDON BYRON 173 

Woven for the Laureate's final wreath, whene'er 
Reform shall happen either here or there. 

He first sank to the bottom — like his works ; 

But soon rose to the surface — like himself, 90 

For all corrupted things are buoyed like corks, 

By their own rottenness, light as an elf, 
Or wisp that flits o'er a morass : he lurks, 

It may be, still, like dull books on a shelf, 
In his own den, to scrawl some "Life" or "Vision," — 95 
As Welborn says, '"the Devil turned precisian." 

As for the rest, to come to the conclusion 
Of this true dream, the telescope is gone 

Which kept my optics free from all delusion. 

And showed me what I in my turn have shown. 100 

All I saw farther, in the last confusion, 

Was that King George slipped into heaven for one; 

And when the tumult dwindled to a calm, 

I left him practising the hundredth psalm. 
1821-22. 1822. 

ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR 

'T is time this heart should be unmoved, 
Since others it hath ceased to move : 
Yet, though I cannot be beloved, 
Still let me love ! 

My days are in the yellow leaf; 5 

The flowers and fruits of love are gone; 
The worm, the canker, and the grief 
Are mine alone! 

The fire that on my bosom preys 

Is lone as some volcanic isle; 10 

No torch is kindled at its blaze — 
A funeral pile! 

The hope, the fear, the jealous care, 

The exalted portion of the pain 
And power of love, I cannot share; 15 

But wear the chain. 



T74 



ENGLISH POEMS 



But 't is not thus — and 't is not here — 

Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now. 
Where Glory decks the hero's bier, 

Or binds his brow. 20 

The sword, the banner, and the field. 
Glory and Greece, around me see ! 
The Spartan, borne upon his shield. 
Was not more free. 

Awake! (not Greece — she is awake!) 25 

Awake, my spirit ! Think through whom 
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, 
And then strike home! 

Tread those reviving passions down, 

Unworthy manhood! — unto thee 30 

Indifferent should the smile or frown 
Of Beauty be. 

If thou regret'st thy youth, why live? 

The land of honourable death 
Is here : — up to the field, and give 35 

Away thy breath! 

Seek out — less often sought than found — 

A soldier's grave, for thee the best; 
Then look around, and choose thy ground, 

And take thy rest. 40 

1824. 1824. 



THOMAS MOORE 

THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA'S HALLS 

The harp that once through Tara's halls 

The soul of music shed. 
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls 

As if that soul were fled. 
So sleeps the pride of former days, 

So glory's thrill is o'er; 
And hearts that once beat high for praise 

Now feel that pulse no more! 



THOMAS MOORE 175 



No more to chiefs and ladies bright 

The harp of Tara swells ; 10 

The chord, alone, that breaks at night, 

Its tale of ruin tells. 
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes, 

The only throb she gives 
Is when some heart indignant breaks, 15 

To show that still she lives ! 



LESBIA HATH A BEAMING EYE 

Lesbia hath a beaming eye. 

But no one knows for whom it beameth; 
Right and left its arrows fly. 

But what they aim at no one dreameth. 
Sweeter 't is to gaze upon 5 

My Nora's lid that seldom rises ; 
Few its looks, but every one. 

Like unexpected light, surprises ! 

Oh, my Nora Creina, dear. 
My gentle, bashful Nora Creina, 10 

Beauty lies 
In many eyes. 
But Love in yours, my Nora Creina. 

Lesbia wears a robe of gold; 

But all so close the nymph hath laced it, 15 

Not a charm of beauty's mould 

Presumes to stay where nature placed it. 
Oh, my Nora's gown for me, 

That floats as wild as mountain breezes, 
Leaving every beauty free 20 

To sink or swell as Heaven pleases. 

Yes, my Nora Creina, dear. 

My simple, graceful Nora Creina, 

Nature's dress 

Is loveliness — 25 

The dress you wear my Nora Creina. 

Lesbia hath a wit refined; 

But when its points are gleaming round us, 



176 ENGLISH POEMS 



Who can tell if they 're designed 

To dazzle merely, or to wound us? 30 

Pillowed on my Nora's heart, 

In safer slumber Love reposes — 
Bed of peace ! whose roughest part 
Is but the crumpling of the roses. 

Oh, my Nora Creina, dear, 35 

My mild, my artless Nora Creina! 
Wit, though bright, 
Hath no such light 
As warms your eyes, my Nora Creina. 



OH, COME TO ME WHEN DAYLIGHT SETS 

Oh, come to me when daylight sets; 

Sweet! then come to me. 
When smoothly go our gondolets 

O'er the moonlight sea; 
When Mirth 's awake, and Love begins, 5 

Beneath that glancing ray. 
With sound of lutes and mandolins. 

To steal young hearts away. 
Then, come to me when daylight sets; 

Sweet! then come to me, 10 

When smoothly go our gondolets 

O'er the moonlight sea. 

Oh, then's the hour for those who love. 

Sweet! like thee and me; 
When all's so calm below, above, 15 

In heaven and o'er the sea; 
When maidens sing sweet barcarolles. 

And Echo sings again 
So sweet that all with ears and souls 

Should love and listen then. 20 

So, come to me when daylight sets; 

Sweet ! then come to me. 
When smoothly go our gondolets 

O'er the moonlight sea. 



THOMAS MOORE ' 177 



OFT, IN THE STILLY NIGHT 

Oft, in the stilly night. 

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me, 
Fond Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me: 

The smiles, the tears, 5 

Of boyhood's years. 
The words of love then spoken; 
The eyes that shone. 
Now dimmed and gone, 
The cheerful hearts now broken! 10 

Thus in the stilly night. 

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me, 
Sad Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me. 

When I remember all 15 

The friends, so linked together, 
I 've seen around me fall. 

Like leaves in wintry weather, 
I feel like one 

Who treads alone 20 

Some banquet-hall deserted. 
Whose lights are fled. 
Whose garlands dead. 
And all but he departed. 
Thus in the stilly night, 23 

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me, 
Sad Memory brings the light 
Of other days around me. 

TWOPENNY POST-BAG 

LETTER V 

From the Countess Dowager of C rk to Lady . 



My dear Lady ! I've been just sending out 

About five hundred cards for a snug little rout — 

(By the bye, you 've seen Rokeby? — this moment got mine — 

The Mail-Coach Edition — prodigiously fine ! ) 

But I can't conceive how, in this very cold weather, 5 



1 78 ENGLISH POEMS 



I 'm ever to bring my five hundred together ; 
As, unless the thermometer 's near boiling heat, 
One can never get half of one's hundreds to meet. 
(Apropos — you 'd have laughed to see Townsend, last night, 
Escort to their chairs, with his staff, so polite, lo 

The "three maiden Miseries," all in a fright; 
Poor Townsend, like Mercury, filling two posts. 
Supervisor of thieves, and chief-usher of ghosts!) 

But, my dear Lady , can't you hit on some notion. 

At least for one night to set London in motion? — 15 

As to having the R-g-nt, that show is gone by — 

Besides, I 've remarked that (between you and I) 

The Marchesa and he, inconvenient in more ways, 

Have taken much lately to whispering in doorways; 

Which — considering, you know, dear, the sise of the two — 20 

Makes a block that one's company cannot get through; 

And a house such as mine is, with doorways so small. 

Has no room for such cumbersome love-work at all. — 

(Apropos, though, of love-work — you 've heard it, I hope. 

That Napoleon's old mother's to marry the Pope, — 25 

What a comical pair!) — but, to stick to my rout, 

'T will be hard if some novelty can't be struck out. 

Is there no Algerine, no Kamchatkan, arrived? 

No Plenipo Pacha, three-tailed and ten-wived? 

No Russian, whose dissonant consonant name 30 

Almost rattles to fragments the trumpet of fame? 

I remember the time, three or four winters back, 
When — provided their wigs were but decently black — 
A few Patriot monsters, from Spain, were a sight 
That would people one's house for one, night after night. 35 
But — whether the Ministers pawed them too much — 
(And you know how they spoil whatsoever they touch) 
Or, whether Lord G — rge (the young man about town) 
Has, by dint of bad poetry, written them down, 
One has certainly lost one's Peninsular rage; 40 

And the only stray Patriot seen for an age 
Has been at such places (think how the fit cools!) 
As old Mrs. V-gh-n's or Lord L-v-rp — I's. 

But, in short, my dear, names like Wintztschitstopschinzoudhoff 
Are the only things now make an evening go smooth off; 45 
So, get me a Russian — till death I 'm your debtor — 



THOMAS MOORE 179 



If he brings the whole Alphabet, so much the better. 
And — Lord ! if he would but, in character, sup 
Off his fish-oil and candles, he 'd quite set me up ! 

Au revoir, my sweet girl — I must leave you in haste — 50 
Little Gunter has brought me the liqueurs to taste. 

Postscript 
By the bye, have you found any friend that can construe 
That Latin account, t 'other day, of a Monster ? 
If we can't get a Russian, and that thing in Latin 
Be not too improper, I think I 'II bring that in. 55 

1813. 1813. 

FROM 

LALLA ROOKH 

Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere, 

With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave, 
Its temples, and grottoes, and fountains as clear 

As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave? 
Oh, to see it at sunset, when warm o'er the lake S 

Its splendour at parting a summer eve throws. 
Like a bride, full of blushes, when ling'ring to take 

A last look of her mirror at night ere she goes ! 
When the shrines through the foliage are gleaming half shown. 
And each hallows the hour by some rites of its own. 10 

Here the music of prayer from a minaret swells. 

Here the Magian his urn, full of perfume, is swinging. 
And here, at the altar, a zone of sweet bells 

Round the waist of some fair Indian dancer is ringing. 
Or to see it by moonlight, when mellowly shines 15 

The light o'er its palaces, gardens, and shrines. 
When the water-falls gleam, like a quick fall of stars. 
And the nightingale's hymn from the Isle of Chenars 
Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet 
From the cool, shining walks where the young people meet : 20 
Or at morn, when the magic of daylight awakes 
A new wonder each minute, as slowly it breaks, — 
Hills, cupolas, fountains, called forth every one 
Out of darkness, as if but just born of the Sun; 
When the spirit of fragrance is up with the day, 25 

From his haram of night-flowers stealing away, 



i8o ENGLISH POEMS 



And the wind, full of wantonness, wooes like a lover 
The young aspen-trees, till they tremble all over ; 
When the East is as warm as the light of first hopes, 

And Day, with his banner of radiance unfurled, 30 

Shines in through the mountainous portal that opes. 
Sublime, from that valley of bliss to the world! 
But never yet, by night or day. 
In dew of spring or summer's ray. 

Did the sweet valley shine so gay 35 

As now it shines — all love and light. 
Visions by day and feasts by night ! 
A happier smile illumes each brow. 

With quicker spread each heart uncloses. 
And all is ecstasy, for now AP 

The valley holds its Feast of Roses ; 
The joyous time, when pleasures pour 
Profusely round, and, in their shower, 
Hearts open, like the season's rose, — 

The flow'ret of a hundred leaves 45 

Expanding while the dew-fall flows, 

And every leaf its balm receives. 
'T was when the hour of evening came 

Upon the lake serene and cool. 
When Day had hid his sultry flame 50 

Behind the palms of Baramoule, 
When maids began to lift their heads, 
Refreshed from their embroidered beds, 
Where they had slept the sun away. 

And waked to moonlight and to play. 55 

All were abroad — the busiest hive 
On Bela's hills is less alive, 
When saffron-beds are full in flower. 
Than looked the valley in that hour. 

A thousand restless torches played 60 

Through every grove and island shade; 
A thousand sparkling lamps were set 
On every dome and minaret; 
And fields and pathways, far and near. 
Were lighted by a blaze so clear 63 

That you could see, in wandering round. 
The smallest rose-leaf on the ground. 



THOMAS MOORE i8l 



Yet did the maids and matrons leave 

Their veils at home, that brilliant eve; 

And there were glancing eyes about, _ 70 

And cheeks that would not dare shine out 

In open day, but thought they might 

Look lovely then because 't was night. 

And all were free and wandering. 

And all exclaimed to all they met 75 

That never did the summer bring 

So gay a Feast of Roses yet; 
The moon had never shed a light 

So clear as that which blessed them there; 
The roses ne'er shone half so bright, 80 

Nor they themselves looked half so fair. 
And what a wilderness of flowers ! 
It seemed as though from all the bowers 
And fairest fields of all the year 

The mingled spoil were scattered here. 85 

The lake, too, like a garden breathes 

With the rich buds that o'er it lie, — 
As if a shower of fairy wreaths 
Had fallen upon it from the sky ! 

And then the sounds of joy: — the beat 90 

Of tabours and of dancing feet; 
The minaret-crier's chaunt of glee 
Sung from his lighted gallery, 
And answered by a ziraleet 

From neighbouring haram wild and sweet; 95 

The merry laughter, echoing 
From gardens where the silken swing 
Wafts some delighted girl above 
The top leaves of the orange-grove. 

Or from those infant groups at play 100 

Among the tents that line the way. 
Flinging, unawed by slave or mother, 
Handfuls of roses at each other. 
Then the sounds from the lake : — the low whispering in boats. 
As they shoot through the moonlight; the dipping of oars; 105 
And the wild, airy warbling that everywhere floats. 

Through the groves, round the islands, as if all the shores. 
Like those of Kathay, uttered music, and gave 



1 82 ENGLISH POEMS 



An answer in song to the kiss of each wave. 
But the gentlest of all are those sounds full of feeling, no 

That soft from the lute of some lover are stealing, 
Some lover who knows all the heart-touching power 
Of a lute and a sigh in this magical hour. 
Oh, best of delights as it everywhere is 

To be near the loved one, — what a rapture is his 115 

Who in moonlight and music thus sweetly may glide 
O'er the Lake of Cashmere, with that one by his side ! 
If woman can make the worst wilderness dear, 
Think, think what a heaven she must make of Cashmere ! 
1811-16'. 1817. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 

FROM 

QUEEN MAB 

Spirit. I was an infant when my mother went 
To see an atheist burned. She took me there. 
The dark-robed priests were met around the pile; 
The multitude was gazing silently; 

And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien, 5 

Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye. 
Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth. 
The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs; 
His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon; 
His death-pang rent my heart ! The insensate mob 10 

Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept. 
"Weep not, child !" cried my mother, "for that man 
Has said, 'There is no God.' " 

Fairy. There is no God ! 

Nature confirms the faith his death-groan sealed. 
Let heaven and earth, let man's revolving race, 15 

His ceaseless generations, tell their tale; 
Let every part depending on the chain 
That links it to the whole, point to the hand 
That grasps its term ! Let every seed that falls 
In silent eloquence unfold its store 20 

Of argument. Infinity within, 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 183 

Infinity without, belie creation ; 

The exterminable spirit it contains 

Is Nature's only God ; but human pride 

Is skilful to invent most serious names 25 

To hide its ignorance. 

The name of God 
Has fenced about all crime with holiness, 
Himself the creature of his worshippers. 
Whose names and attributes and passions change — 
Seeva, Buddh, Fob, Jehovah, God, or Lord — 30 

Even with' the human dupes who build his shrines. 
Still serving o'er the war-polluted world 
For desolation's watchword; whether hosts 
Stain his death-blushing chariot-wheels, as on 
Triumphantly they roll whilst Brahmins raise 35 

A sacred hymn to mingle with the groans ; 
Or countless partners of his power divide 
His tyranny to weakness ; or the smoke 
Of burning towns, the cries of female helplessness. 
Unarmed old age, and youth, and infancy, 40 

Horribly massacred, ascend to heaven 
In honour of his name; or, last and worst. 
Earth groans beneath religion's iron age. 
And priests dare babble of a God of peace 
Even whilst their hands are red with guiltless blood, 45 
Murdering the while, uprooting every germ 
Of truth, exterminating, spoiling all. 
Making the earth a slaughter-house ! 
1812-13. 1813. 

FROM 

ALASTOR 

Earth, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood ! 

If our great Mother has imbued my soul 

With aught of natural piety to feel 

Your love, and recompense the boon with mine; 

If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, 5 

With sunset and its gorgeous ministers, 

And solemn midnight's tingling silentness, 

If Autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood, 

And Winter robing with pure snow and crowns 



1 84 ENGLISH POEMS 



Of starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs, lo 

If Spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes 

Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me; 

If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast 

I consciously have injured, but still loved 

And cherished these my kindred ; then forgive 15 

This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw 

No portion of your wonted favour now ! 

Mother of this unfathomable world. 
Favour my solemn song! for I have loved 
Thee ever, and thee only ! I have watched 20 

Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps. 
And my heart ever gazes on the depth 
Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed 
In charnels and on coffins, where black Death 
Keeps record of the trophies won from thee; 25 

Hoping to still these obstinate questionings 
Of thee and thine by forcing some lone ghost, 
Thy messenger, to render up the tale 
Of what we are. In lone and silent hours, 
When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness, 30 
Like an inspired and desperate alchemist 
Staking his very life on some dark hope, 
Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks 
With my most innocent love, until strange tears. 
Uniting with those breathless kisses, made 35 

Such magic as compels the charmed night 
To render up thy charge. And though ne'er yet 
Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary, 
Enough from incommunicable dream. 

And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought, 40 
Has shone within me, that serenely now 
And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre 
Suspended in the solitary dome 
Of some mysterious and deserted fane, 
I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain 45 

May modulate with murmurs of the air, 
And motions of the forests and the sea, 
And voice of living beings, and woven hymns 
Of night and day, and the deep heart of man. 
1815. 1816. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 185 



HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY 

The awful shadow of some unseen Power 

Floats though unseen among us, visiting 

This various world with as inconstant wing 
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower: 
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, 5 

It visits with inconstant glance 

Each human heart and countenance; 
Like hues and harmonies of evening. 

Like clouds in starlight widely spread. 

Like memory of music fled, 10 

Like aught that for its grace may be 
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. 

Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate 

With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon 

Of human thought or form, where art thou gone? 15 

Why dost thou pass away, and leave our state. 
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? 
Ask why the sunlight not forever 
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river; 

Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown; 20 
Why fear and dream and death and birth 
Cast on the daylight of this earth 
Such gloom; why man has such a scope 

For love and hate, despondency and hope. 

No voice from some sublirner world hath ever 25 

To sage or poet these responses given; 

Therefore the names of demon, ghost, and Heaven 
Remain the records of their vain endeavour, — 
Frail spells, whose uttered charm might not avail to sever. 

From all we hear and all we see, .3^ 

Doubt, chance, and mutability. 
Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven, 

Or music by the night wind sent 

Through strings of some still instrument. 

Or moonlight on a midnight stream, 35 

Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. 



1 86 ENGLISH POEMS 



Love, hope, and self-esteem, like clouds, depart 

And come, for some uncertain moments lent. 

Man were immortal and omnipotent. 
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, 40 

Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. 

Thou messenger of sympathies 

That wax and wane in lovers' eyes. 
Thou that to human thought art nourishment, 

Like darkness to a dying flame, 45 

Depart not as thy shadow came ! 

Depart not, lest the grave should be, 

Like life and fear, a dark reality ! 

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped 

Through many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin, 50 

And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing 
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. 
I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed : 

I was not heard, I saw them not; 

When, musing deeply on the lot 55 

Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing 

All vital things that wake to bring 

News of birds and blossoming, — 

Sudden thy shadow fell on me ; 
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! 60 

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers 

To thee and thine — have I not kept the vow? 
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now 

I call the phantoms of a thousand hours 
Each from his voiceless grave : they have in visioned bowers 65 
Of studious zeal or love's delight 
Outwatched with me the envious night; 

They know that never joy illumed my brow 
Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free 
This world from its dark slavery, 70 

That thou, O awful Loveliness, 

Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express. 

The day becomes more solemn and serene 
When noon is past ; there is a harmony 
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, 75 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 187 

Which through the summer is not heard or seen, 
As if it could not be, as if it had not been ! 

Thus let thy power, which like the truth 

Of nature on my passive youth 
Descended, to my onward life supply 80 

Its calm, — to one who worships thee. 

And every form containing thee; 

Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind 
To fear himself, and love all human kind. 
1816. 1817. 



ODE TO THE WEST WIND 



O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being. 
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead . 
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red. 
Pestilence-stricken multitudes ; O thou 5 

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, 
Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow 

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 10 

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
With living hues and odours plain and hill; 

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; 
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear! 



Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, 15 
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed. 
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, 

Angels of rain and lightning; there are spread 

On the blue surface of thine airy surge, 

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Of some fierce maenad, even from the dim verge 

Of the horizon to the zenith's height, 

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge . 

Of the dying year, to which this closing night 

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 25 

Vaulted with all thy congregated might 

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst; O hear! 

in ' 

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30 

Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, 

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, 
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
Quivering within the wave's intenser day. 

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers 35 

So sweet the sense faints picturing them ! Thou 
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 

Cleave themselves into chasms, while, far below. 

The sea-blooms, and the oozy woods which wear 

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 40 

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, 
And tremble and despoil themselves ; O hear ! 



If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; 

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; 

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 45 

The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
Than thou, O uncontrollable ! if even 
I were as in my boyhood, and could be 

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 

As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed 50 

Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 189 

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! 
I fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed ! 

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed 55 

One too like thee — tameless, and swift, and proud. 



Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is; 
What if my leaves are falling like its own ! 
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 

Willetake from both a deep, autumnal tone, 60 

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, 
My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, 

Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth ! 

And, by the incantation of this verse, 65 

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth 
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! 
Be through my lips to unawakened earth 

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, 

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? 70 

1819. 1820. 

THE INDIAN SERENADE 

I arise from dreams of thee 

In the first sweet sleep of night, 

When the winds are breathing low. 

And the stars are shining bright : 

I arise from dreams of thee, 5 

And a spirit in my feet 

Hath led me — who knows how? — 

To thy chamber window, sweet ! 

The wandering airs, they faint 

On the dark, the silent stream ; 10 

And the champak's odours fail 

Like sweet thoughts in a dream; 



igo 



ENGLISH POEMS 



The nightingale's complaint, 

It dies upon her heart, 

As I must on thine, 15 

Oh, beloved as thou art! 

Oh, lift me from the grass! 
I die! I faint! I fail! 
Let thy love in kisses rain 

On my lips and eyelids pale. 20 

My cheek is cold and white, alas ! 
My heart beats loud and fast: 
Oh, press it to thine own again, 
Where it will break at last. 
1819. 1822. 



THE MASK OF ANARCHY 

As I lay asleep in Italy, 
There came a voice from over the sea. 
And with great power it forth led me 
To walk in the visions of Poesy. 

I met Murder on the way — 5 

He had a mask like Castlereagh; 
Very smooth he looked, yet grim; 
Seven bloodhounds followed him. 

All were fat; and well they might 

Be in admirable plight, 10 

For one by one, and two by two, 

He tossed them human hearts to chew, 

Which from his wide cloak he drew. 

Next came Fraud, and he had on. 

Like Lord Eldon, an ermined gown; 15 

His big tears, for he wept well, 

Turned to mill-stones as they fell; 

And the little children, who 

Round his feet played to and fro^ 

Thinking every tear a gem, 20 

Had their brains knocked out by them. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 191 

Clothed with the Bible as with light, 

And the shadows of the night, 

Like Sidmouth, next Hypocrisy 

On a crocodile rode by. 25 

And many more Destructions played 

In this ghastly masquerade, 

All disguised, even to the eyes, 

Like bishops, lawyers, peers, and spies. 

Last came Anarchy; he rode 30 

On a white horse splashed with blood; 
He was pale even to the lips. 
Like Death in the Apocalpyse. 

And he wore a kingly crown; 

In his hand a sceptre shone; 35 

On his brow this mark I saw — 
"I AM God, and King, and Law !" 

With a pace stately and fast, 

Over English land he passed, 

Trampling to a mire of blood 40 

The adoring multitude. 

And a mighty troop around 

With their trampling shook the ground, 

Waving each a bloody sword 

For the service of their Lord. 45 

And with glorious triumph they 
Rode through England, proud and gay. 
Drunk as with intoxication 
Of the wine of desolation. 

O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea, 50 

Passed that pageant swift and free. 
Tearing up, and trampling down, 
Till they came to London town. 

And each dweller, panic-stricken. 

Felt his heart with terror sicken, 55 

Hearing the tempestuous cry 

Of the triumph of Anarchy. 



192 



ENGLISH POEMS 



For with pomp to meet him came, 
Clothed in arms like blood and flame, 
The hired murderers who did sing, 60 

"Thou art God, and Law, and King, 

"We have waited, weak and lone, 
For thy coming. Mighty One ! 
Our purses are empty, our swords are cold : 
Give us glory, and blood, and gold." 65 

Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd. 
To the earth their pale brows bowed; 
Like a bad prayer not over-loud, 
Whispering, "Thou art Law and God !" 

Then all cried with one accord, 70 

"Thou art King, and God, and Lord! 
Anarchy, to thee we bow ; 
Be thy name made holy now !" 

And Anarchy, the Skeleton, 

Bowed and grinned to every one, 75 

As well as if his education 

Had cost ten millions to the nation. 

For he knew the palaces 

Of our kings were rightly his ; 

His the sceptre, crown, and globe, 80 

And the gold-inwoven robe. 

So he sent his slaves before 

To seize upon the Bank and Tower, 

And was proceeding with intent 

To meet his pensioned Parliament, 85 

When one fled past, a maniac maid, 
And her name was Hope, she said; 
But she looked more like Despair, 
And she cried out in the air : 

"My father Time is weak and grey go 

With waiting for a better day; ^ 
See how idiot-like he stands. 
Fumbling with his palsied hands ! 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 



193 



"He has had child after child, 
And the dust of death is piled 95 

Over every one but me — 
Misery! oh, misery!" 

Then she lay down in the street 

Right before the horses' feet. 

Expecting with a patient eye 100 

Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy: — 

When between her and her foes 

A mist, a light, an image rose. 

Small at first, and weak and frail, 

Like the vapour of a vale; 305 

Till, as clouds grow on the blast, 
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast, 
And glare with lightnings as they fly. 
And speak in thunder to the sky. 

It grew — a shape arrayed in mail no 

Brighter than the viper's scale, 
And upborne on wings whose grain 
Was as the light of sunny rain. 

On its helm, seen far away, 

A planet like the morning's lay; 115 

And those plumes its light rained through, 
Like a shower of crimson dew. 

With step as soft as wind it passed 

O'er the heads of men — so fast 

That they knew the presence there, 120 

And looked — but all was empty air. 

As flowers beneath May's footstep waken. 
As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken. 
As waves arise when loud winds call. 
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall. 125 

And the prostrate multitude 
Looked — and, ankle-deep in blood, 
Hope, that maiden most serene, 
Was walking with a quiet mien; 



194 ENGLISH POEMS 



And Anarchy, the ghastly birth, 130 

Lay dead earth upon the earth; 

The Horse of Death, tameless as wind, 

Fled, and with his hoofs did grind 

To dust the murderers thronged behind. 

A rushing light of clouds and splendour, 135 

A sense awakening and yet tender, 
Was heard and felt; and at its close 
These words of joy and fear arose, 

As if their own indignant Earth, 

Which gave the sons of England birth, 140 

Had felt their blood upon her brow. 

And, shuddering with a mother's throe, 

Had turned every drop of blood 

By which her face had been bedewed 

To an accent unwithstood, 145 

As if her heart had cried aloud : 

/'"^'Men of England, heirs of glory. 
Heroes of unwritten story. 
Nurslings of one mighty Mother, 
Hopes of her and one another; 150 

"Rise like lions after slumber, 
In unvanquishable number ! 
Shake your chains to earth like dew 
Which in sleep had fallen on you ! 
Ye are many, they are few. 155 

"What is Freedom? — Ye can tell 
That which Slavery is too well, 
For its very name has grown 
To an echo of your own. 

" 'T is to work and have such pay 160 

As just keeps life from day to day 
In your limbs, as in a cell 
For the tyrants' use to dwell; 

"So that ye for them are made 
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade; 165 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 



195 



With or without your own will, bent 
To their defence and nourishment. 

" 'T is to see your children weak 
With their mothers pine and peak, 
When the winter winds are bleak — 170 

They are dying whilst I speak. 

"'Tis to hunger for such diet 
As the rich man in his riot 
Casts to the fat dogs that lie 
Surfeiting beneath his eye. 175 

" 'T is to let the ghost of gold 
Take from toil a thousandfold 
More than e'er its substance could 
In the tyrannies of old; 

"Paper coin — that forgery ^^^ 180 

Of the title-deeds which ye ,v^,,«=>? 

Hold to something from the worth 
Of the inheritance of Earth. / 

" 'T is to be a slave in soul, 

And to hold no strong control 185 

Over your own wills, but be 
All that others make of ye. 

"And at length when ye complain 
With a murmur weak and vain, 
'T is to see the tyrant's crew 190 

Ride over your wives and you — 
Blood is on the grass like dew ! 

"Then it is to feel revenge. 
Fiercely thirsting to exchange 

Blood for blood, and wrong for wrong: 195 

Do not thus when ye are strong! 

"Birds find rest in narrow nest. 
When weary of their winged quest; 
Beasts find fare in woody lair. 
When storm and snow are in the air. ' 200 



196 ENGLISH POEMS 



"Horses, oxen, have a home 
When from daily toil they come; 
Household dogs, when the wind roars. 
Find a home within warm doors. 

"Asses, swine, have litter spread, 205 

And with fitting food are fed ; 
All things have a home but one — 
Thou, O Englishman, hast none ! 

"This is Slavery: savage men. 
Or wild beasts within a den, 210 

Would endure not as ye do — 
But such ills they never knew. 

"What art thou, Freedom? Oh, could slaves 
Answer from their living graves 
This demand, tyrants would flee 215 

Like a dream's dim imagery. 

"Thou art not, as impostors say, 
A shadow soon to pass away, 
A superstition, and a name 
Echoing from the cave of Fame. 220 

"For the labourer thou art bread, 
And a comely table spread. 
From his daily labour come. 
In a neat and happy home. 

"Thou art clothes, and fire, and food, 225 

For the trampled multitude — 
No, in countries that are free 
Such starvation cannot be 
As in England now we see. 

"To the rich thou art a check; 230 

When his foot is on the neck 
Of his victim, thou dost make 
That he treads upon a snake. 

"Thou art Justice — ne'er for gold 
May thy righteous laws be sold, 235 

As laws are in England; thou 
Shield'st alike both high and low. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 197 

"Thou art Wisdom — freemen never 
Dream that God will damn forever 
All who think those things untrue 240 

Of which priests make such ado. 

"Thou art Peace — never by thee 
Would blood and treasure wasted be, 
As tyrants wasted them when all 
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul. 245 

"What if English toil and blood 
Was poured forth, even as a flood? 
It availed, O Liberty! 
To dim but not extinguish thee. 

"Thou art Love — the rich have kissed 250 

Thy feet, and, like him following Christ, 
Give their substance to the free 
And through the rough world follow thee; 

"Or turn their wealth to arms, and make 
War for thy beloved sake 255 

On wealth and war and fraud, whence they 
Drew the power which is their prey. 

"Science, Poetry, and Thought 
Are thy lamps; they make the lot 
Of the dwellers in a cot 260 

Such they curse their Maker not. 

"Spirit, Patience, Gentleness, 
All that can adorn and bless. 
Art thou — let deeds, not words, express 
Thine exceeding loveliness. 265 

"Let a great Assembly be 
Of the fearless and the free. 
On some spot of English ground 
Where the plains stretch wide around. 

"Let the blue sky overhead, 270 

The green earth on which ye tread. 
All that must eternal be. 
Witness the solemnity. 



igS ENGLISH POEMS 



"From the corners uttermost 
Of the bounds of English coast; 275 

From every hut, village, and town. 
Where those, who live and suffer, moan 
For others' misery or their own ; 

"From the workhouse and the prison, 
Where, pale as corpses newly risen, 280 

Women, children, young and old, 
Groan for pain, and weep for cold; 

"From the haunts of daily life. 
Where is waged the daily strife 
With common wants and common cares, 285 

Which sows the human heart with tares; 

"Lastly, from the palaces. 
Where the murmur of distress 
Echoes, like the distant sound 
Of a wind alive, around 290 

"Those prison-halls of wealth and fashion, 
Where some few feel such compassion 
For those who groan, and toil, and wail, 
As must make their brethren pale; — 

"Ye who suffer woes untold, 295 

Or to feel or to behold 
Your lost country bought and sold 
With a price of blood and gold; 

"Let a vast Assembly be. 

And with great solemnity 300 

Declare with measured words that ye 
Are, as God has made ye, free! 

"Be your strong and simple words 
Keen to wound as sharpened swords ; 
And wide as targes let them be, 305 

With their shade to cover ye. 

"Let the tyrants pour around 
With a quick and startling sound, 
Like the loosening of a sea. 
Troops of armed emblazonry. 310 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 



199 



"Let the charged artillery drive, 
Till the dead air seems alive 
With the clash of clanging wheels 
And the tramp of horses' heels. 

"Let the fixed bayonet 315 

Gleam with sharp desire to wet 
Its bright point in English blood, 
Looking keen as one for food. 

"Let the horsemen's scimitars 

Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars 320 

Thirsting to eclipse their burning 
In a sea of death and mourning. 

"Stand ye calm and resolute, 
Like a forest close and mute, 

With folded arms, and looks which are 325 

Weapons of unvanquished war. 

"And let Panic, who outspeeds 
The career of armed steeds. 
Pass, a disregarded shade, 
Through your phalanx undismayed. 330 

"Let the laws of your own land. 
Good or ill, between ye stand. 
Hand to hand, and foot to foot, 
Arbiters of the dispute; 

"The old laws of England, they 335 

Whose reverend heads with age are grey. 
Children of a wiser day, 
And whose solemn voice must be 
Thine own echo. Liberty ! 

"On those who first should violate 340 

Such sacred heralds in their state. 
Rest the blood that must ensue; 
And it will not rest on you, 

"And if then the tyrants dare, 

Let them ride among you there, 345 

Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew: 
What they like, that let them do. 



200 ENGLISH POEMS 



"With folded arms and steady eyes, 
And little fear and less surprise, 
Look upon them as they slay, 350 

Till their rage has died away. ; 

"Then they will return with shame 
To the place from which they came, 
And the blood thus shed will speak 
In hot blushes on their cheek. 355 

"Every woman in the land 
Will point at them as they stand; 
They will hardly dare to greet 
Their acquaintance in the street. 

"And the bold true warriors, 360 

Who have hugged Danger in wars, 
Will turn to those who would be free. 
Ashamed of such base company. 

"And that slaughter to the nation 
Shall steam up like inspiration, 365 

Eloquent, oracular; 
A volcano heard afar. 

"And these words shall then become 
Like Oppression's thundered doom. 
Ringing through each heart and brain, 370 

Heard again — again — again ! 

"Rise like lions after slumber 
In unvanquishable number ! 
Shake your chains to earth, like dew 
Which in sleep had fallen on you — 375 

Ye are many, they are few !" 
1819. 1832. 

THE CLOUD 

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 

From the seas and the streams. 
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 

In their noonday dreams. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 



From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 5 

The sweet buds every one, 
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 

As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail. 

And whiten the green plains under, 10 

And then again I dissolve it in rain. 

And laugh as I pass in thunder. 

I sift the snow on the mountains below, 

And their great pines groan aghast; 
And all the night 't is my pillow white, 15 

While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers. 

Lightning my pilot sits ; 
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder. 

It struggles and howls at fits : 20 

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, 

This pilot is guiding me, 
Lured by the love of the genii that move 

In the depths of the purple sea; 
Over the rills and the crags and the hills, 25 

Over the lakes and the plains. 
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream. 

The spirit he loves remains ; 
And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile. 

Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 30 

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes. 

And his burning plumes outspread. 
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack. 

When the morning star shines dead; 
As on the jag of a mountain crag, 35 

Which an earthquake rocks and swings. 
An eagle alit one moment may sit 

In the light of its golden wings. 
And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath. 

Its ardours of rest and of love, 40 

And the crimson pall of eve may fall 

From the depth of heaven above. 
With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest. 

As still as a brooding dove. 



202 ENGLISH POEMS 



That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, 45 

Whom mortals call the moon, 
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor. 

By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet. 

Which only the angels hear, 50 

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof. 

The stars peep behind her and peer; 
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee. 

Like a swarm of golden bees. 
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 55 

Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, 
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 

Are each paved with the moon and these. 

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone. 

And the moon's with a girdle of pearl; 60 

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, 

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, 

Over a torrent sea, 
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof; 65 

The mountains its columns be. 
The triumphal arch, through which I march. 

With hurricane, fire, and snow. 
When the powers of the air are chained to myjchair, 

Is the million-colored bow ; 7° 

The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove, 

While the moist earth was laughing below. 

I am the daughter of earth and water. 

And the nursling of the sky; 
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 75 

I change, but I cannot die: 
For after the rain, when with never a stain 

The pavilion of heaven is bare. 
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams 

Build up the blue dome of air, 80 

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 

And out of the caverns of rain. 
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 

I arise and unbuild it again. 
1820. 1820. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 203 

TO A SKYLARK 

Hail to thee, blithe spirit! 

Bird thou never wert, 
That from heaven, or near it, 

Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 5 

Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest 
Like a cloud of fire; 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever sing- 

est. 10 

In the golden lightning 

Of the sunken sun, 
O'er which clouds are bright'ning, 

Thou dost float and run ; 
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 15 

The pale purple even 

Melts around thy flight; 
Like a star of heaven. 
In the broad daylight 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, 20 

Keen as are the arrows 

Of that silver sphere. 
Whose intense lamp narrows 

In the white dawn clear. 
Until we hardly see — we feel that it is there. 25 

All the earth and air 

With thy voice is loud, 
As, when night is bare. 
From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is over- 
flowed. 30 

What thou art we know not; 

What is most like thee? 
From rainbow clouds there flow not 

Drops so bright to see 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 35 



204 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Like a poet hidden 

In the Hght of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 
Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not; 40 

Like a high-born maiden 

In a palace tower. 
Soothing her love-laden 
Soul in secret hour 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her 

bower ; 45 

Like a glow-worm golden 

In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 
Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from 

the view; 50 

Like a rose embowered 

In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflowered, 
-Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy- 
winged thieves; 55 

Sound of vernal showers 
On the twinkling grass. 
Rain-awakened flowers. 
All that ever was 
Joyous and clear and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 60 

Teach us, sprite or bird. 

What sweet thoughts are thine; 
I have never heard 

Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 65 

Chorus hymenzeal. 

Or triumphal chaunt. 
Matched with thine, would be all 

But an empty vaunt, 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 70 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 205 

What objects are the fountains 

Of thy happy strain? 
What fields or waves or mountains? 
What shapes of sky or plain? 
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of 

pain ? 75 

With thy clear keen joyance 

Languor cannot be; 
Shadow of annoyance 

Never came near thee; 
Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 80 

Waking or asleep 

Thou of death must deem 
Things more true and deep 
Than we mortals dream, 
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal 

stream ? 85 

We look before and after, 

And pine for what is not; 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest 

thought. 90 

Yet if we could scorn 

Hate and pride and fear, 
If we were things born 
Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joy we ever should come 

near. 95 

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound. 
Better than all treasures 
That in books are found, 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the 

ground ! 100 



2o6 ENGLISH POEMS 



Teach me half the gladness 




That thy brain must know, 




Such harmonious madness 




From my lips would flow, 




The world should listen then, as I 


am listening 


now. 


105 


1820. 


1820. 


FROM 




EPIPSYCHIDION 





The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me ! 

To whatsoe'er of dull mortality 

Is mine remain a vestal sister still ; 

To the intense, the deep, the imperishable — 

Not mine but me — henceforth be thou united, 5 

Even as a bride, delighting and delighted. 

The hour is come : — the destined star has risen 

Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. 

The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set 

The sentinels — but true love never yet 10 

Was thus constrained ; it overleaps all fence : 

Like lightning with invisible violence 

Piercing its continents ; like heaven's free breath, 

Which he who grasps can hold not; liker Death, 

Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way 1$ 

Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array 

Of arms: more strength has love than he or- they; 

For it can burst his charnel, and make free 

The limbs in chains, the heart in agony. 

The soul in dust and chaos. 

Emily, 20 

A ship is floating in the harbour now ; 
A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow ; 
There is a path on the sea's azure floor, — 
No keel has ever ploughed that path before; 
The halcyons brood around the foamless isles ; 25 

The treacherous ocean has forsworn its wiles ; 
The merry mariners are bold and free : 
Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me? 
Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 207 

Is a far Eden of the purple East ; 30 

And we between her wings will sit, while Night 

And Day and Storm and Calm pursue their flight, 

Our ministers, along the boundless sea, 

Treading each other's heels, unheededly. 

It is an isle under Ionian skies, 35 

Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise ; 

And, for the harbours are not safe and good, 

This land would have remained a solitude 

But for some pastoral people native there, 

Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air 40 

Draw the last spirit of the age of gold, — 

Simple and spirited, innocent and bold. 

The blue ^gean girds this chosen home, 

With ever-changing sound and light and foam, 

Kissing the sifted sands and caverns hoar; 45 

And all the winds wandering along the shore 

Undulate with the undulating tide : 

There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide. 

And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, 

As clear as elemental diamond, 50 

Or serene morning air; and, far beyond, 

The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer 

(Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year) 

Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls 

Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls 55 

Illumining, with sound that never fails 

Accompany the noonday nightingales : 

And all the place is peopled with sweet airs ; 

The light clear element which the isle wears 

Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers, 60 

Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers, 

And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep ; 

And from the moss violets and jonquils peep. 

And dart their arrowy odour through the brain. 

Till you might faint with that delicious pain : 65 

And every motion, odour, beam, and tone 

With that deep music is in unison, 

Which is a soul within the soul ; they seem 

Like echoes of an antenatal dream. 

It is an isle 'twixt heaven, air, earth, and sea, 70 



2o8 ENGLISH POEMS 



Cradled and hung in clear tranquillity ; 

Bright as that wandering Eden, Lucifer, 

Washed by the soft blue oceans of young air. 

It is a favoured place. Famine or blight. 

Pestilence, war, and earthquake, never light 75 

Upon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they 

Sail onward far upon their fatal way. 

The winged storms, chaunting their thunder-psalm 

To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm 

Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, 80 

From which its fields and woods ever renew 

Their green and golden immortality. 

And from the sea there rise, and from the sky 

There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright. 

Veil after veil, each hiding some delight ; 85 

Which sun or moon or zephyr draws aside, 

Till the isle's beauty, like a naked bride 

Glowing at once with love and loveliness, 

Blushes and trembles at its own excels. 

Yet, like a buried lamp, a soul no less go 

Burns in the heart of this delicious isle, 

An atom of the Eternal, whose own smile 

Unfolds itself, and may be felt, not seen, 

O'er the grey rocks, blue waves, and forests green, 

Filling their bare and void interstices. QS 

But the chief marvel of the wilderness 

Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how 

None of the rustic island-people know : 

'T is not a tower of strength, though with its height 

It overtops the woods ; but for delight loo 

Some wise and tender ocean-king, ere crime 

Had been invented, in the world's young prime, 

Reared it, a wonder of that simple time. 

An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house 

Made sacred to his sister and his spouse. 105 

It scarce seems now a wreck of human art, 

But, as it were, Titanic; in the heart 

Of Earth having assumed its form, then grown 

Out of the mountains, from the living stone. 

Lifting itself in caverns light and high: no 

For all the antique and learned imagery 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 209 

Has been erased, and in the place of it 

The ivy and the wild vine interknit 

The volumes of their many-twining stems ; 

Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems 1 15 

The lampless halls, and, when they fade, the sky 

Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery 

With moonlight patches, or star-atoms keen, 

Or fragments of the day's intense serene, — 

Working mosaic on their Parian floors. 120 

And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers 

And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem 

To sleep in one another's arms, and dream 

Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we 

Read in their smiles, and call reality. 125 

This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed 
Thee to be lady of the solitude. 
And I have fitted up some chambers there 
Looking towards the golden Eastern air, 
And level with the living winds which flow 130 

Like waves above the living waves below. 
I have sent books and music there, and all 
Those instruments with which high spirits call 
The future from its cradle, and the past 
Out of its grave, and make the present last 135 

In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, 
Folded within their own eternity. 
Our simple life wants little, and true taste 
Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste 
The scene it would adorn ; and therefore still 140 

Nature with all her children haunts the hill. 
The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet 
Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit 
Round the evening tower, and the young stars glance 
Between the quick bats in their twilight dance; 145 

The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight 
Before our gate, and the slow silent night 
Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. 
Be this our home in life ; and when years heap 
Their withered hours, like leaves, on our decay, 150 

Let us become the overhanging day, 
The living soul of this Elysian isle, 



2IO ENGLISH POEMS 



Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile 

We two will rise, and sit, and walk together. 

Under the roof of blue Ionian weather, 155 

And wander in the meadows, or ascend 

The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend 

With lightest winds, to touch their paramour; 

Or linger where the pebble-paven shore, 

Under the quick, faint kisses of the sea, 160 

Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy, — 

Possessing and possessed by all that is 

Within that calm circumference of bliss. 

And by each other, till to love and live 

Be one : or, at the noontide hour, arrive 165 

Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep 

The moonlight of the expired night asleep. 

Through which the awakened day can never peep ; 

A veil for our seclusion, close as night's. 

Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights; 170 

Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain 

Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again. 

And we will talk, until thought's melody 

Become too sweet for utterance, and it die 

In words, to live again in looks, which dart 175 

With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart. 

Harmonizing silence without a sound : 

Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound, 

And our veins beat together; and our lips. 

With other eloquence than words, eclipse 180 

The soul that burns between them ; and the wells 

Which boil under our being's inmost cells, 

The fountains of our deepest life, shall be 

Confused in passion's golden purity. 

As mountain-springs under the morning sun. 185 

We shall become the same, we shall be one 

Spirit within two frames — oh, wherefore two? 

One passion in twin-hearts, which grows and grew, 

Till, like two meteors of expanding flame. 

Those spheres instinct with it become the same, 190 

Touch, mingle, are transfigured ; ever still 

Burning, yet ever inconsumable ; 

In one another's substance finding food. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 211 

Like flames too pure and light and unimbued 

To nourish their bright lives with baser prey, 195 

Which point to heaven and cannot pass away : 

One hope within two wills, one will beneath 

Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death. 

One heaven, one hell, one immortality. 

And one annihiliation ! 

Woe is me ! 200 

The winged words on which my soul would pierce 
Into the height of love's rare universe 
Are chains of lead around its flight of fire. 
I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire! 
1821. 1821. 

ADONAIS 

I weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 
O, weep for Adonais ! though our tears 
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head! 
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years 
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 5 

And teach them thine own sorrow : say, "With me 
Died Adonais ; till the Future dares 
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be 
An echo and a light unto eternity!" 

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 10 

When thy son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies 
In darkness? where was lorn Urania 
When Adonais died? With veiled eyes, 
'Mid listening Echoes, in her paradise 
. She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, 15 

Rekindled all the fading melodies. 
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, 
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death. 

O, weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 

Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep ! — 20 

Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed 

Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep. 

Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep ; 

For he is gone where all things wise and fair 



212 ENGLISH POEMS 



Descend: oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 25 

Will yet restore him to the vital air; 
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair. 

Most musical of mourners, weep again! 
Lament anew, Urania! — He died, 

Who was the sire of an immortal strain, 30 

Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride 
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide 
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite 
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified. 
Into the gulf of death; but his clear sprite 35 

Yet reigns o'er earth, the third among the sons of light. 

Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 
Not all to that bright station dared to climb; 
And happier they their happiness who knew. 
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 40 

In which suns perished; others more sublime. 
Struck by the envious wrath of man or God, 
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime; 
And some yet live, treading the thorny road 
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode, /js 

But now thy youngest, dearest one has perished, 
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew 
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished 
And fed with true-love tears instead of dew; 
Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 50 

Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last. 
The bloom whose petals, nipt before they blew, 
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste; 
The broken lily lies — the storm is overpast. 

To that high capital where kingly Death 55 

Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay. 
He came; and bought, with price of purest breath, 
A grave among the eternal. — Come away! 
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day 
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof ! while still 60 

He lies as if in dewy sleep he lay! 
Awake him not! surely he takes his fill 
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 213 

He will awake no more, oh, never more ! 
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace 65 

The shadow of white Death, and at the door 
Invisible Corruption waits to trace 
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place; 
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe 
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface 70 

So fair a prey, till darkness and the law 
Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. 

O, weep for Adonais ! — The quick Dreams, 

The passion-winged ministers of thought. 

Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams 75 

Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught 

The love which was its music, wander not. 

Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain. 

But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their 

lot 
Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, 80 
They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again. 

And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head, 
And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries, 
"Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead ! 
See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, 85 

Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies 
A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain." 
Lost angel of a ruined paradise ! 
She knew not 't was her own, as with no stain 
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. 90 

One from a lucid urn of starry dew 
Washed his light limbs as if embalming them; 
Another dipt her profuse locks, and threw 
The wreath upon him, like an anadem. 
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem ; 95 

Another in her wilful grief would break 
Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem 
A greater loss with one which was more weak. 
And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. 

Another Splendour on his mouth alit, 100 

That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath 



214 ENGLISH POEMS 



Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit, 
And pass into the panting heart beneath 
With lightning and with music : the damp death 
Quenched its caress upon his icy Hps ; 105 

And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath 
Of moonhght vapour, which the cold night clips. 
It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse. 

And others came — Desires and Adorations, 
Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies, no 

Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations 
Of hopes and fears, and twilight Fantasies ; 
And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, 
And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam 
Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, 115 

Came in slow pomp ; — the moving pomp might seem 
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. 

All he had loved, and moulded into thought, 
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound. 
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 120 

Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair, unbound. 
Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, 
Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day; 
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned; 
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, 125 

And the wild winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay. 

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains. 
And feeds her grief with his remembered lay. 
And will no more reply to winds or fountains. 
Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, 130 
Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day, 
Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear 
Than those for whose disdain she pined away 
Into a shadow of all sounds : — a drear 
Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. 135 

Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down 

Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, 

Or they dead leaves ; since her delight is flown, 

For whom should she have waked the sullen year? 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 215 

To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear, 140 

Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both 
Thou, Adonais : wan they stand and sere 
Amid the faint companions of their youth, 
With dew all turned to tears, odour to sighing ruth. 

Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale, l<:|5 

Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain; 
Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale 
Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain 
Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, 
Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, 150 

As Albion wails for thee : the curse of Cain 
Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast. 
And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest! 

Ah, woe is me ! Winter is come and gone, 
But grief returns with the revolving year ; 155 

The airs and streams renew their joyous tone; 
The ants, the bees, the swallows, reappear; 
Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier; 
The amorous birds now pair in every brake. 
And build their mossy homes in field and brere; 160 

And the green lizard and the golden snake, 
Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake. 

Through wood and stream and field and hill and ocean, 
A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst, 
As it has ever done, with change and motion, 165 

From the great morning of the world when first 
God dawned on Chaos ; in its stream immersed. 
The lamps of heaven flash with a softer light; 
All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst, 
Diffuse themselves, and spend in love's delight 170 

The beauty and the joy of their renewed might. 

The leprous corpse, touched by this spirit tender. 

Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath; 

Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour 

Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death, 175 

And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath. 

Naught we know dies. Shall that alone which knows 



2i6 ENGLISH POEMS 



Be as a sword consumed before the sheath 
By sightless lightning? — th' intense atom glows 
A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. i8o 

Alas ! that all we loved of him should be, 
But for our grief, as if it had not been, 
And grief itself be mortal ! Woe is me ! 
Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene 
The actors or spectators? Great and mean 185 

Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow. 
As long as skies are blue, and fields are green. 
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, 
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow. 

He will awake no more, oh never more ! 100 

"Wake thou," cried Misery, "childless Mother, rise 
Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart's core, 
A wound more fierce than his with tears and sighs !" 
And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes. 
And all the Echoes whom their sister's song 195 

Had held in holy silence, cried, "Arise !" 
Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung. 
From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung. 

She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs 
Out of the East, and follows wild and drear 200 

The golden Day, which, on eternal wings, 
Even as a ghost abandoning a bier. 
Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear 
So struck, so roused, so rapt Urania; 
So saddened round her like an atmosphere 205 

Of stormy mist ; so swept her on her way 
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. 

Out of her secret paradise she sped. 
Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel. 
And human hearts, which, to her airy tread 210 

Yielding not, wounded the invisible 
Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell; 
And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they. 
Rent the soft form they never could repel. 
Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, 215 
Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way. 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 217 

In the death-chamber for a moment Death, 
Shamed by the presence of that hving Might, 
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath 
Revisited those lips, and life's pale light 220 

Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight. 
"Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless. 
As silent lightning leaves the starless night! 
Leave me not !" cried Urania : her distress 
Roused Death; Death rose and smiled, and met her vain 

caress. 225 

"Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again; 
Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live; 
And in my heartless breast and burning brain 
That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive. 
With food of saddest memory kept alive, 230 

Now thou art dead, as if it were a part 
Of thee, my Adonais ! I would give 
All that I am to be as thou now art ! 
But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart! 

"O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, 235 

Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men 
Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart 
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den? 
Defenceless as thou wert, oh where was then 
Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear? 240 
Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when 
Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere. 
The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like deer. 

"The herded wolves, bold only to pursue; 
The obscene ravens clamorous o'er the dead; 245 

The vultures, to the conqueror's banner true. 
Who feed where Desolation first has fed. 
And whose wings rain contagion, — how they fied. 
When, like Apollo, from his golden bow 
The Pythian of the age one arrow sped, 250 

And smiled ! — The spoilers tempt no second blow ; 
They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low. 



2i8 ENGLISH POEMS 



"The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn; 
He sets, and each ephemeral insect then 
Is gathered into death without a dawn, 255 

And the immortal stars awake again. 
So is it in the world of living men : 
A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight 
Making earth bare and veiling heaven; and when 
It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light 260 
Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night." 

Thus ceased she. And the mountain shepherds came, 
Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent: 
The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame 
Over his living head like heaven is bent, 265 

An early but enduring monument, 
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song 
In sorrow ; from her wilds lerne sent 
The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, 
And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue. 270 

Midst others of less note, came one frail form, 
A phantom among men; companionless 
As the last cloud of an expiring storm, 
Whose thunder is its knell : he, as I guess, 
Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness, 275 

Actccon-like, and now he fled astray 
With feeble steps o'er- the world's wilderness. 
And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, 
Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey. 

A pardlike spirit beautiful and swift; 2S0 

A love in desolation masked ; a power 
Girt round with weakness — it can scarce uplift 
The weight of the superincumbent hour; 
It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, 

A breaking billow — even whilst we speak, 285 

Is it not broken? On the withering flower 
The killing sun smiles brightly; on a cheek 
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break. 

His head was bound with pansies overblown. 

And faded violets, white and pied and blue; 290 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 219 

And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, 
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew, 
Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew, 
Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart 

Shook the weak hand that grasped it : of that crew 295 
He came the last, neglected and apart; 
A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart. 

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan 
Smiled through their tears ; well knew that gentle band 
Who in another's fate now wept his own, 300 

As in the accents of an unknown land 
He sung new sorrow. Sad Urania scanned 
The stranger's mien, and murmured, "Who art thou?" 
He answered not, but with a sudden hand 
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, 305 

Which was like Cain's or Christ's — oh, that it should be so ! 

What softer voice is hushed over the dead? 
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown? 
What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed. 
In mockery of monumental stone, 310 

The heavy heart heaving without a moan? 
If it be he who, gentlest of the wise. 
Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one. 
Let me not vex with inharmonious sighs 
The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice. 315 

Our Adonais has drunk poison — oh, 
What deaf and viperous murderer could crown 
Life's early cup with such a draught of woe? 
The nameless worm would now itself disown : 
It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone 320 

Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong, 
But what was howling in one breast alone, 
Silent with expectation of the song 
Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung. 

Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 325 

Live ! fear no heavier chastisement from me, 
Thou noteless blot on a remembered name! 
But be thyself, and know thyself to be ! 



2 20 'ENGLISH POEMS 



And ever at thy season be thou free 

To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow. 330 

Remorse and self-contempt shall cling to thee; 
Hot shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, 
And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as now. 

Nor let us weep that our delight is fled 
Far from these carrion kites that scream below; 335 

He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead; 
Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. 
Dust to the dust ! but the pure spirit shall flow 
Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 
A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 340 

Through time and change, unquenchably the same. 
Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame. 

Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep — 
He hath awakened from the dream of life. 
'T is we who, lost in stormy visions, keep 345 

With phantoms an unprofitable strife. 
And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife 
Invulnerable nothings. We decay 
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief 
Convulse us and consume us day by day, 350 

And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay. 

He has outsoared the shadow of our night; 
Envy and calumny and hate and pain. 
And that unrest which men miscall delight, 
Can touch him not and torture not again; 355 

From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
He is secure, and now can never mourn 
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain; 
Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, 
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 360 

He lives, he wakes — 't is Death is dead, not he ; 

Mourn not for Adonais. Thou young dawn, 

Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee 

The spirit thou lamentest is not gone ! 

Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan ! 365 

Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains ; and thou air,^ 

Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 221 

O'er the abandoned earth, now leave it bare 
Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair! 

He is made one with Nature : there is heard 370 

His voice in all her music, from the moan 
Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird; 
He is a presence to be felt and known 
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, 
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 375 

Which has withdrawn his being to its own, 
Which wields the world with never wearied love, 
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. 

He is a portion of the loveliness 

Which once he made more lovely; he doth bear 380 

His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress 
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there 
All new successions to the forms they wear, 
Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight 
To its own likeness, as each mass may bear, 385 

And bursting in its beauty and its might 
From trees and beasts and men into the heaven's light. 

The splendours of the firmament of time 
May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not; 
Like stars to their appointed height they climb, 390 

And death is a low mist which cannot blot 
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 
Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair. 
And love and life contend in it for what 
Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there, 395 

And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. 

The inheritors of unfulfilled renown 
Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, 
Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton 

Rose pale, — his solemn agony had not 400 

Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought 
And as he fell, and as he lived and loved, 
Sublimely mild, a spirit without spot, 
Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved: 
Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. 405 



ENGLISH POEMS 



And many more, whose names on earth are dark, 

But whose transmitted effluence cannot die 

So long as fire outlives the parent spark. 

Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 
"Thou art become as one of us," they cry; 410 

"It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long 

Swung blind in unascended majesty. 

Silent alone amid an heaven of song. 
Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng!" 

Who mourns for Adonais? oh, come forth, 415 

Fond wretch ! and know thyself and him aright. 
Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous earth; 
As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light 
Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might 
Satiate the void circumference; then shrink 420 

Even to a point within our day and night; 
And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink. 
When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink. 

Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre — 
Oh, not of him, but of our joy: 'tis naught 425 

That ages, empires, and religions there 
Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought; 
For such as he can lend, they borrow not. 
Glory from those who made the world their prey; 
And he is gathered to the kings of thought 430 

Who waged contention with their time's decay. 
And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 

Go thou to Rome, — at once the paradise, 
The grave, the city, and the wilderness; 
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, 435 
And flowering weeds and fragrant copses dress 
The bones of Desolation's nakedness. 
Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead 
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, 
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead 440 

A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. 

And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time 
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand; 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 223 

And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, 
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 445 

This refuge for his memory, doth stand 
Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath 
A field is spread, on which a newer band 
Have pitched in heaven's smile their camp of death, 
Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath. 450 

Here pause : these graves are all too young as yet 
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned 
Its charge to each ; and if the seal is set, 
Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind. 
Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find 455 

Thine own well full, if thou returnest home. 
Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind 
Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. 
What Adonais is, why fear we to become? 

The One remains, the many change and pass ; 460 

Heaven's light forever shines. Earth's shadows fly; 
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass. 
Stains the white radiance of Eternity, 
Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, 
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! 463 
Follow where all is fled ! — Rome's azure sky. 
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak 
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. 

Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart? 
Thy hopes are gone before; from all things here 470 

They have departed : thou shouldst now depart ! 
A light is past from the revolving year. 
And man, and woman; and what still is dear 
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 
The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near; 475 

'T is Adonais calls ! oh, hasten thither ! 
No more let Life divide what Death can join together. 

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, 

That Beauty in which all things work and move, 

That Benediction which the eclipsing curse 480 

Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 



224 ENGLISH POEMS 



Which, through the web of being blindly wove 
By man and beast and earth and air and sea, 
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, 485 

Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 

The breath whose might I have invoked in song 
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven 
Far from the shore, far from the trembhng throng 
Whose sails were never to the tempest given; 490 

The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! 
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar; 
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven, 
The soul of Adonais, like a star. 
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 495 

1821. 1821. 



THE WORLD'S GREAT AGE BEGINS ANEW 

The world's great age begins anew. 

The golden years return. 
The earth doth like a snake renew 

Her winter weeds outworn ; 
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam 5 

Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. 

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains 

From waves serener far; 
A new Peneus rolls his fountains 

Against the morning star; 10 

Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep 
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. 

A loftier Argo cleaves the main, 

Fraught with a later prize; 
Another Orpheus sings again, 15 

And loves, and weeps, and dies; 
A new Ulysses leaves once more 
Calypso for his native shore. 

Oh, write no more the tale of Troy, 

If earth Death's scroll must be! 20 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 



225 



Nor mix with Laian rage the joy 

Which dawns upon the free. 
Although a subtler Sphinx renew 
Riddles of death Thebes never knew. 

Another Athens shall arise, 25 

And to remoter time 
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, 

The splendour of its prime ; 
And leave, if nought so bright may live. 
All earth can take or heaven can give. 30 

Saturn and Love their long repose 

Shall burst, more bright and good 
Than all who fell, than one who rose. 

Than many unsubdued; 
Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, 35 

But votive tears and symbol flowers. 

Oh cease ! must hate and death return ? 

Cease ! must men kill and die ? 
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn 

Of bitter prophecy ! 40 

The world is weary of the past, — 
Oh might it die or rest at last ! 
1821. 1822. 



TO 

One word is too often profaned 

For me to profane it. 
One feeling too falsely disdained 

For thee to disdain it; 
One hope is too like despair 5 

For prudence to smother, 
And pity from thee more dear 

Than that from another. 

I can give not what men call love, 

But wilt thou accept not 10 

The worship the heart lifts above 

And the heavens reject not — 



226 ENGLISH POEMS 



The desire of the moth for the star, 

Of the night for the morrow, 
The devotion to something afar 15 

From the sphere of our sorrow? 
182 1. 1824. 



TO NIGHT 

Swiftly walk over the western wave, 

Spirit of Night! 
Out of the misty eastern cave, 
Where all the long and lone daylight 
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, S 

Which make thee terrible and dear, — 

Swift be thy flight! 

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey, 

Star-inwrought ! 
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day; 10 

Kiss her until she be wearied out; 
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, 
Touching all with thine opiate wand — 

Come, long-sought! 

When I arose and saw the dawn, 15 

I sighed for thee; 
When light rode high, and the dew was gone, 
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, 
And the weary Day turned to his rest. 
Lingering like an unloved guest, 20 

I sighed for thee. 

Thy brother Death came, and cried, 

"Wouldst thou me?" 
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, 
Murmured like a noontide bee, 25 

"Shall I nestle near thy side? 
Wouldst thou me?" And I replied, 
"No, not thee!" 

Death will come when thou art dead. 

Soon, too soon; 3° 



LEIGH HUNT 227 



Sleep will come when thou art fled; 
Of neither would I ask the boon 
I ask of thee, beloved Night — 
Swift be thine approaching flight, 

Come soon, soon! 35 

1821. 1824. 



LEIGH HUNT 

FROM 

THE STORY OF RIMINI 

A noble range it was, of many a rood. 
Walled round with trees, and ending in a wood; 
Indeed the whole was leafy, and it had 
A winding stream about it, clear and glad, 
That danced from shade to shade, and on its way 5 

Seemed smiling with delight to feel the day. 
There was the pouting rose, both red and white. 
The flamy heart's-ease, flushed with purple light. 
Blush-hiding strawberry, sunny-coloured box, 
Hyacinth, handsome with his clustering locks, 10 

The lady lily, looking gently down. 
Pure lavender, to lay in bridal gown, 
The daisy, lovely on both sides, — in short. 
All the sweet cups to which the bees resort. 
With plots of grass, and perfumed walks between 15 

Of citron, honeysuckle, and jessamine. 
With orange, whose warm leaves so finely suit. 
And look as if they shade a golden fruit. 
And midst the flowers, turfed round beneath a shade 
Of circling pines, a babbling fountain played ; 20 

And 'twixt their shafts you saw the water bright. 
Which through the darksome tops glimmered with shower- 
ing light. 
So now you walked beside an odorous bed 
Of gorgeous hues, white, azure, golden, red; 
And now turned off into a leafy walk, 25 

Close and continuous, fit for lovers' talk; 
And now pursued the stream, and, as you trod 



228 ENGLISH POEMS 

Onward and onward o'er the velvet sod, 

Felt on your face an air, watery and sweet. 

And a new sense in your soft-lighting feet; 30 

And then perhaps you entered upon shades, 

Pillowed with dells and uplands 'twixt the glades, 

Through which the distant palace, now and then, 

Looked lordly forth with many-windowed ken. 

A land of trees, which, reaching round about, 35 

In shady blessing stretched their old arms out, 

With spots of sunny opening, and with nooks 

To lie and read in, sloping into brooks. 

Where at her drink you started the slim deer, 

Retreating lightly with a lovely fear. 40 

And all about, the birds kept leafy house, 

And sung and sparkled in and out the boughs; 

And all about, a lovely sky of blue 

Clearly was felt, or down the leaves laughed through ; 

And here and there, in every part, were seats, 45 

Some in the open walks, some in retreats. 

With bowering leaves o'erhead, to which the eye 

Looked up half sweetly and half awfully, — 

Places of nestling green, for poets made, 

Where, when the sunshine struck a yellow shade, 50 

The rugged trunks, to inward peeping sight, 

Thronged in dark pillars up the gold green light. 

But 'twixt the wood and flowery walks, halfway, 
And formed of both, the loveliest portion lay, 
A spot that struck you like enchanted ground. 55 

It was a shallow dell, set in a mound 
Of sloping shrubs, that mounted by degrees, 
The birch and poplar mixed with heavier trees ; 
From under which, sent through a marble spout. 
Betwixt the dark wet green, a rill gushed out, 60 

Whose low sweet talking seemed as if it said 
Something eternal to that happy shade. 
The ground within was lawn, with plots of flowers 
Heaped towards the centre and with citron bowers; 
And in the midst of all, clustered with bay 65 

And myrtle, and just gleaming to the day. 



LEIGH HUNT • 229 



Lurked a pavilion — a delicious sight, — 

Small, marble, well-proportioned, mellowy white, 

With yellow vine-leaves sprinkled — but no more, — 

And a young orange either side the door. yo 

The door was to the wood, forward and square; 

The rest was domed at top, and circular; 

And through the dome the only light came in. 

Tinged, as it entered, with the vine-leaves thin. 

It was a beauteous piece of ancient skill, 75' 

Spared from the rage of war, and perfect still; 
By some supposed the work of fairy hands, 
Famed for luxurious taste and choice of lands, — 
Alcina or Morgana, who from fights 

And errant fame inveigled amorous knights, 80 

And lived with them in a long round of blisses — 
Feasts, concerts, baths, and bower-enshaded kisses. 
But 't was a temple, as its sculpture told. 
Built to the nymphs that haunted there of old ; 
For o'er the door was carved a sacrifice, 85 

By girls and shepherds brought, with reverend eyes. 
Of sylvan drinks and foods, simple and sweet. 
And goats with struggling horns and planted feet; 
And round about, ran on a line with this, 
In like relief, a world of pagan bliss, 90 

That showed, in various scenes, the nymphs themselves — 
Some by the water-side, on bowery shelves 
Leaning at will ; some in the water sporting, 
With sides half swelling forth, and looks of courting ; 
Some in a flowery dell, hearing a swain 95 

Play on his pipe till the hills ring again; 
Some tying up their long moist hair; some sleeping 
Under the trees, with fauns and satyrs peeping, 
Or, sidelong-eyed, pretending not to see 
The latter in the brakes come creepingly, 100 

While from their careless urns, lying aside 
In the long grass, the straggling waters slide. 
Never, be sure, before or since was seen 
A summer-house so fine in such a nest of green. 
18 12-16. 181 6. 



230 



ENGLISH POEMS 



JOHN KEATS 

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER 

Much have I travelled in the realms of gold, 

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; 

Round many western islands have I been 
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 3 

That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne; 

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: 
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 

When a new planet swims into his ken; 10 

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 

He stared at the Pacific — and all his men 
Looked at each other with a wild surmise — 

Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 
1816. 1816 

FROM 

I STOOD TIPTOE UPON A LITTLE HILL 

I stood tiptoe upon a little hill. 

The air was cooling, and so very still 

That the sweet buds which with a modest pride 

Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside. 

Their scantly-leaved and finely tapering stems, 5 

Had not yet lost those starry diadems 

Caught from the early sobbing of the morn. 

The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn. 

And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept 

On the blue fields of heaven ; and then there crept 10 

A little noiseless noise among the leaves, 

Born of the very sigh that silence heaves : 

For not the faintest motion could be seen 

Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green. 

There was wide wand'ring for the greediest eye, 15 

To peer about upon variety; 

Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim, 

And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim; 



JOHN KEATS 231 



To picture out the quaint and curious bending 

Of a fresh woodland alley, never ending; 20 

Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves, 

Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves. 

I gazed awhile, and felt as light and free 

As though the fanning wings of Mercury 

Had played upon my heels : I was light-hearted, 25 

And many pleasures to my vision started; 

So I straightway began to pluck a posey 

Of luxuries bright, milky, soft, and rosy. 

A bush of May flowers with the bees about them; 
Ah, sure no tasteful nook would be without them ; 30 

And let a lush laburnum oversweep them. 
And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them 
Moist, cool, and green, and shade the violets, 
That they may bind the moss in leafy nets. 

A filbert hedge with wild briar overtwined, 35 

And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind 
Upon their summer thrones ; there too should be 
The frequent chequer of a youngling tree. 
That with a score of light green brethren shoots 
From the quaint mossiness of aged roots; 40 

Round which is heard a spring-head of clear waters 
Babbling so wildly of its lovely daughters, 
The spreading blue-bells : it may haply mourn 
That such fair clusters should be rudely torn 
From their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly 45 

By infant hands, left on the path to die. 

Open afresh your round of starry folds, 
Ye ardent marigolds ! 

Dry up the moisture from your golden -lids. 
For great Apollo bids 50 

That in these days your praises should be sung 
On many harps, which he has lately strung; 
And when again your dewiness he kisses. 
Tell him I have you in my world of blisses : 
So haply when I rove in some far vale, 55 

His mighty voice may come upon the gale. 

Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight. 
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white, 
^nd taper fingers catching at all things. 



232 



ENGLISH POEMS 



To bind them all about with tiny rings. 60 

Linger awhile upon some bending planks 
That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks, 
And watch intently Nature's gentle doings; 
They will be found softer than ring-dove's cooings. 
How silent comes the water round that bend; 65 

Not the minutest whisper does it send 
To the o'erhanging sallows : blades of grass 
Slowly across the chequered shadows pass ; 
Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach 
To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach 70 

A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds; 
Where swarms of minnows show their little heads. 
Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams. 
To taste the luxury of sunny beams 

Tempered with coolness. How they ever wrestle 75 

With their own sweet delight, and ever nestle 
Their silver bellies on the pebbly sand. 
If you but scantily hold out the hand. 
That very instant not, one will remain; 

But turn your eye, and they are there again. 80 

The ripples seem right glad to reach those cresses. 
And cool themselves among the em'rald tresses ; 
The while they cool themselves, they freshness give, 
And moisture, that the bowery green may live, 
So keeping up an interchange of favours, 85 

Like good men in the truth of their behaviours. 
Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop 
From low-hung branches; little space they stop. 
But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek. 
Then off at once, as in a wanton freak, 90 

Or, perhaps, to show their black and golden wings. 
Pausing upon their yellow flutterings. 
Were I in such a place, I sure should pray 
That naught less sweet might call my thoughts away 
Than the soft rustle of a maiden's gown 95 

Fanning away the dandelion's down, 
Than the light music of her nimble toes 
Patting against the sorrel as she goes. 
How she would start, and blush, thus to be caught 
Playing in all her innocence of thought. 100 



JOHN KFATS 233 



O let me lead her gently o'er the brook, 
Watch her half-smiling lips and downward look; 
O let me for one moment touch her wrist ; 
Let me one moment to her breathing list; 
And as she leaves me may she often turn 105 

Her fair eyes looking through her locks auburne. 
1816. 1817. 

FROM 

ENDYMION 

PROEM 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever : 

Its loveliness increases ; it will never 

Pass into nothingness ; but still will keep 

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 

Full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing. 5 

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing 

A flowery band to bind us to the earth, 

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days. 

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways 10 

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all. 

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon. 

Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon 

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils, 15 

With the green world they live in; and clear rills 

That for themselves a cooling covert make 

'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, 

Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms ; 

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms 20 

We have imagined for the mighty dead; 

All lovely tales that we have heard or read : 

An endless fountain of immortal drink. 

Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. 

Nor do we merely feel these essences 25 

For one short hour; no, even as the trees 
That whisper round a temple become soon 
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, 
The passion poesy, glories infinite, 



234 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Haunt us till they become a cheering light 30 

Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast 

That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast. 

They always must be with us, or we die. 

Therefore, 't is with full happiness that I 
Will trace the story of Endymion. 35 

The very music of the name has gone 
Into my being, and each pleasant scene 
Is growing fresh before me as the green 
Of our own valleys : so I will begin 

Now while I cannot hear the city's din ; 40 

Now while the early budders are just new, 
And run in mazes of the youngest hue 
About old forests; while the willow trails 
Its delicate amber, and the dairy pails 

Bring home increase of milk. And as the year 45 

Grows lush in juicy stalks, I '11 smoothly steer 
My little boat, for many quiet hours. 
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers. 
Many and many a verse I hope to write. 
Before the daisies, vermeil-rimmed and white, 50 

Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees 
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas, 
I must be near the middle of my story. 
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary, 
See it half finished; but let autumn bold, 55 

With universal tinge of sober gold. 
Be all about me when I make an end. 
And now at once, adventuresome, I send 
My herald thought into a wilderness : 

There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress 60 

My uncertain path with green, that I may speed 
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed. 
1817 1818. 

HYMN TO PAN 

"O thou whose mighty palace-roof doth hang 
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth 
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death 
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness : 
Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress 5 



JOHN KEATS 235 



Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken; 

And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken 

The dreary melody of bedded reeds, 

In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds 

The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth, 10 

Bethinking thee how melancholy loth 

Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx, — do thou now, 

By thy love's milky brow, 

By all the trembling mazes that she ran, 

Hear us, great Pan! 15 

"O thou for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles 
Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles. 
What time thou wanderest at eventide 
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side 
Of thine enmossed realms : O thou to whom 20 

Broad-leaved fig trees even now foredoom 
Their ripened fruitage; yellow-girted bees 
Their golden honeycombs ; our village leas 
Their fairest-blossomed beans and poppied corn; 
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn, 25 

To sing for thee; low-creeping strawberries 
Their summer coolness ; . pent up butterflies 
Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year 
All its completions, — be quickly near. 

By every wind that nods the mountain pine, 30 

O Forester Divine ! 

"Thou to whom every faun and satyr flies 
For willing service; whether to surprise 
The squatted hare while in half-sleeping fit; 
Or upward ragged precipices flit 35 

To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw; 
Or by mysterious enticement draw 
Bewildered shepherds to their path again; 
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main, 
And gather up all fancifuUest shells 40 

For thee to tumble into naiads' cells, 
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping; 
Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping, 
The while they pelt each other on the crown 



236 ENGLISH POEMS 



With silvery oak apples and fir cones brown, — 45 

By all the echoes that about thee ring, 
Hear us, O Satyr King ! 

"O Hearkener to the loud-clapping shears, 
While ever and anon to his shorn peers 
A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn, 50 

When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn 
Anger our huntsmen : Breather round our farms. 
To keep off mildews and all weather harms : 
Strange Ministrant of undescribed sounds, 
That come a-swooning over hollow grounds, 55 

And wither drearily on barren moors : 
Dread Opener of the mysterious doors 
Leading to universal knowledge, — see. 
Great son of Dryope, 

The many that are come to pay their vows 60 

With leaves about their brows ! 

"Be still the unimaginable lodge 
For solitary thinkings ; such as dodge 
Conception to the very bourne of heaven. 
Then leave the naked brain : be still the leaven, 65 

That spreading in this dull and clodded earth 
Gives it a touch ethereal — a new birth : 
Be still a symbol of immensity; 
A firmament reflected in a sea; 
An element filling the space between ; 70 

An unknown but no more; we humbly screen 

With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending, 

And giving out a shout most heaven-rending. 

Conjure thee to receive our humble paean. 

Upon thy Mount Lycean !" 75 

1817. 1818. 



WHEN I HAVE FEARS THAT I MAY CEASE TO BE 

When I have fears that I may cease to be 

Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain. 

Before high-piled books, in charact'ry, 

Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain ; 



JOHN KEATS 237 



When I behold, upon the night's starred face, 5 

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance. 
And think that I may never live to trace 

Their shadows, w^ith the magic hand of chance; 
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, 

That I shall never look upon thee more, 10 

Never have relish in the faery power 

Of unreflecting love; then on the shore 
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think, 
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. 
1818. 1848. 



ON SITTING DOWN TO READ "KING LEAR" ONCE AGAIN 

O golden-tongued Romance, with serene lute! 

Fair plumed Syren, Queen of far-away ! 

Leave melodizing on this wintry day, 
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute : 
Adieu ! for once again the fierce dispute 5 

Betwixt damnation and impassioned clay 

Must I burn through ; once more humbly assay 
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit. 
Chief poet ! and ye clouds of Albion, 

Begetters of our deep eternal theme! 10 

When through the old oak forest I am gone, 

Let me not wander in a barren dream, 
But when I am consumed in the fire. 
Give me new phoenix-wings to fly at my desire. 
1818. 1848. 



MOTHER OF HERMES, AND STILL YOUTHFUL MAIA 

Mother of Hermes, and still youthful Maia, 

May I sing to thee 
As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae? 

Or may I woo thee 
In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles « 

Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles, 
By bards who died content on pleasant sward, 
Leaving great verse unto a little clan? 



238 ENGLISH POEMS 



O, give me their old vigour; and unheard 

Save of the quiet primrose, and the span 10 

Of heaven, and few ears. 
Rounded by thee, my song should die away 

Content as theirs, 
Rich in the simple worship of a day. 
1818. 1848. 

FROM 

HYPERION 

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale 

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, 

Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star. 

Sat grey-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone. 

Still as the silence round about his lair; 5 

Forest on forest hung about his head 

Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there. 

Not so much life as on a summer's day 

Robs not one light seed from the feathered grass; 

But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. 10 

A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more 

By reason of his fallen divinity 

Spreading a shade; the naiad 'mid her reeds 

Pressed her cold finger closer to her lips. 

Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went, 15 

No further than to where his feet had strayed 
And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground 
His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, 
Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; 
While his bowed head seemed list'ning to the Earth, 20 
His ancient mother, for some comfort yet. 

It seemed no force could wake him from his place; 
But there came one, who with a kindred hand 
Touched his wide shoulders, after bending low 
With reverence, though to one who knew it not. 25 

She was a goddess of the infant world : 
By her in stature the tall Amazon 
Had stood a pigmy's height; she would have ta'en 
.Achilles by the hair and bent his neck. 
Or with a finger stayed Ixion's wheel. 30 



JOHN KEATS 239 



Her face was large as that of Mempliian sphinx. 

Pedestaled haply in a palace-court, 

When sages looked to Egypt for their lore. 

But, oh, how unlike marble was that face! 

How beautiful, if sorrow had not made 35 

Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self. 

There was a listening fear in her regard. 

As if calamity had but begun; 

As if the vanward clouds of evil days 

Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear 40 

Was with its stored thunder labouring up. 

One hand she pressed upon that aching spot 

Where beats the human heart, as if just there, 

Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain; 

The other upon Saturn's bended neck 45 

She laid, and, to the level of his ear 

Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake 

In solemn tenour and deep organ tone. 

Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue 

Would come in these like accents— O how frail 50 

To that large utterance of the early gods ! 

"Saturn, look up! — though wherefore, poor old king? 
I have no comfort for thee, no not one : 
I cannot say, 'O wherefore sleepest thou?' 
For heaven is parted from thee, and the earth 55 

Knows thee not, thus afflicted, for a god; 
And ocean too, with all its solemn noise, 
Has from thy sceptre passed; and all the air 
Is emptied of thine hoary majesty. 

Thy thunder, conscious of the new command, 60 

Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house; 
And thy sharp lightning in unpractised hands 
Scorches and burns our once serene domain. 
O aching time ! O moments big as years ! 
All, as ye pass, swell out the monstrous truth, 65 

And press it so upon our weary griefs 
That unbelief has not a space to breathe. 
Saturn, sleep on! O, thoughtless, why did I 
Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude? 

Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes? 70 

Saturn, sleep on ! while at thy feet I weep." 



240 ENGLISH POEMS 



As when, upon a tranced summer night, 
Those green-robed senators of mighty woods, 
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, 
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir, 75 

Save from one gradual solitary gust 
Which comes upon the silence and dies off, 
As if the ebbing air had but one wave ; 
So came these words and went, the while in tears 
She touched her fair large forehead to the ground, 80 

Just where her falling hair might be outspread 
A soft and silken mat for Saturn's feet. 

One moon, with alteration slow, had shed 
Her silver seasons four upon the night, 
And still these two were postured motionless 85 

Like natural sculpture in cathedral cavern — 
The frozen god still couchant on the earth, 
And the sad goddess weeping at his feet; 
Until at length old Saturn lifted up 

His faded eyes, and saw his kingdom gone, 90 

And all the gloom and sorrow of the place, 
And that fair kneeling goddess ; and then spake 
As with a palsied tongue, and while his beard 
Shook horrid with such aspen-malady : 

"O tender spouse of gold Hyperion, 95 

Thea, I feel thee ere I see thy face; 
Look up, and let me see our doom in it; 
Look up, and tell me if this feeble shape 
Is Saturn's; tell me if thou hear'st the voice 
Of Saturn ; tell me if this wrinkling brow, 100 

Naked and bare of its great diadem, 
Peers like the front of Saturn. Who had power 
To make me desolate? whence came the strength? 
How was it nurtured to such bursting forth, 
While Fate seemed strangled in my nervous grasp? 105 

But it is so; and I am smothered up, 
And buried from all godlike exercise 
Of influence benign on planets pale. 
Of admonitions to the winds and seas. 
Of peaceful sway above man's harvesting, no 

And all those acts which Deity supreme 
Doth ease its heart of love in. — I am gone 



JOHN KEATS 241 



Away from my own bosom; I have left 

My strong identity, my real self, 

Somewhere between the throne and where I sit 115 

Here on this spot of earth. Search, Thea, search ! 

Open thine eyes eterne, and sphere them round 

Upon all space : space starred, and lorn of light ; 

Space regioned with life-air, and barren void ; 

Spaces of fire, and all the yawn of hell. 120 

Search, Thea, search ! and tell me if thou seest 

A certain shape or shadow making way 

With wings or chariot fierce to repossess 

A heaven he lost erewhile : it must — it must 

Be of ripe progress — Saturn must be king. 125 

Yes, there must be a golden victory; 

There must be gods thrown down, and trumpets blown 

Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival 

Upon the gold clouds metropolitan, 

Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir 130 

Of strings in hollow shells ; and there shall be 

Beautiful things made new, for the surprise 

Of the sky-children : I will give command. — 

Thea ! Thea ! Thea ! where is Saturn ?" 

This passion lifted him upon his feet, 135 

And made his hands to struggle in the air, 
His druid locks to shake and ooze with sweat, 
His eyes to fever out, his voice to cease. 
He stood, and heard not Thea's sobbing deep. 
A little time, and then again he snatched 140 

Utterance thus: "But cannot I create? 
Cannot I form? Cannot I fashion forth 
Another world, another universe. 
To overbear and crumble this to naught? 
Where is another chaos ? Where ?" — That word 145 

Found way unto Olympus, and made quake 
The rebel three. — Thea was startled up, 
And in her bearing was a sort of hope, 
As thus she quick-voice spake, yet full of awe : 

"This cheers our fallen house : come to our friends, 150 

Saturn ! come away, and give them heart ; 

1 know the covert, for thence came I hither." 
Thus brief; then with beseeching eyes she went 



242 ENGLISH POEMS 



With backward footing through the shade a space: 
He followed, and she turned to lead the way 155 

Through aged boughs, that yielded like the mist 
Which eagles cleave upmounting from their nest. 
T8i8-ig 1820. 

FANCY 

Ever let the Fancy roam, 

Pleasure never is at home; 

At a touch sweet pleasure melteth. 

Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. 

Then let winged Fancy wander 5 

Through the thought still spread beyond her; 

Open wide the mind's cage-door, 

She '11 dart forth, and cloudward soar. 

O sweet Fancy! let her loose: 

Summer's joys are spoilt by use, 10 

And the enjoying of the spring 

Fades as does its blossoming; 

Autumn's red-lipped fruitage too. 

Blushing through the mist and dew. 

Cloys with tasting. What do then? 15 

Sit thee by the ingle, when 

The sear faggot blazes bright. 

Spirit of a winter's night ; 

When the soundless earth is muffled, 

And the caked snow is shuffled 20 

From the ploughboy's heavy shoon ; 

When the Night doth meet the Noon 

In a dark conspiracy 

To banish Even from her sky. 

Sit thee there, and send abroad, 25 

With a mind self-overawed. 

Fancy, high-commissioned — send her ! 

She has vassals to attend her : 

She will bring, in spite of frost. 

Beauties that the earth hath lost ; 30 

She will bring thee, all together. 

All delights of summer weather; 

All the buds and bells of May, 



JOHN KEATS 243 



From dewy sward or thorny spray; 

All the heaped autumn's wealth, 35 

With a still, mysterious stealth. 

She will mix these pleasures up 

Like three fit wines in a cup. 

And thou shalt quaff it : — thou shalt hear 

Distant harvest-carols clear; 40 

Rustle of the reaped corn; 

Sweet birds antheming the morn ; 

And in the same moment — hark! 

'T is the early April lark. 

Or the rooks, with busy caw, 45 

Foraging for sticks and straw : 

Thou shalt, at one glance, behold 

The daisy and the marigold ; 

White-plumed lilies, and the first 

Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst; S^^ 

Shaded hyacinth, alway 

Sapphire queen of the mid-May; 

And every leaf and every flower 

Pearled with the self-same shower : 

Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep 55 

Meagre from its celled sleep ; 

And the snake all winter-thin 

Cast on sunny bank its skin : 

Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see 

Hatching in the hawthorn-tree, 60 

When the hen-bird's wing doth rest 

Quiet on her mossy nest; 

Then the hurry and alarm 

When the bee-hive casts its swarm; 

Acorns ripe down-pattering 65 

While the autumn breezes sing. 

Oh, sweet Fancy ! let her loose : 
Every thing is spoilt by use. 
Where 's the cheek that doth not fade, 
Too much gazed at ? Where 's the maid yo 

Whose lip mature is ever new? 
Where 's the eye, however blue, 
Doth not weary ? Where 's the face 
One would meet in every place? 



244 ENGLISH POEMS 



Where 's the voice, however soft, 75 

One would hear so very oft? 
At a touch sweet pleasure melteth 
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. 
Let, then, winged Fancy find 

Thee a mistress to thy mind : 80 

Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter 
Ere the God of Torment taught her 
How to frown and how to chide ; 
With a waist and with a side 

White as Hebe's, when her zone 85 

Slipt its golden clasp, and down 
Fell her kirtle to her feet. 
While she held the goblet sweet. 
And Jove grew languid. — Break the mesh 
Of the Fancy's silken leash ; 90 

Quickly break her prison-string 
And such joys as these she'll bring. 
Let the winged Fancy roam. 
Pleasure never is at home. 
1818. 1820. 



ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE 

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk. 
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains 

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk : 
'T is not through envy of thy happy lot, 5 

But being too happy in thine happiness, — 
That thou, light-winged dryad of the trees. 
In some melodious plot 
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, 

Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 10 

O for a draught of vintage, that hath been 
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, 

Tasting of Flora and the country green. 

Dance, and Provengal song, and sunburnt mirth ! 

O for a beaker full of the warm South, 13 

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 



JOBN KEATS 245 



With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, 
And purple-stained mouth; 
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, 

And with thee fade away into the forest dim : 20 

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget 

What thou among the leaves hast never known, 
The weariness, the fever, and the fret 

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan ; 
Where Palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, 25 

Where Youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies ; 
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow 
And leaden-eyed despairs ; 
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes. 

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 30 

Away ! away ! for I will fly to thee. 

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, 
But on the viewless wings of Poesy, 

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards : 
Already with thee ! tender is the night, 35 

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, 
Clustered around by all her starry fays; 
But here there is no light, 
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown 

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40 

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, 

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs. 
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet 

Wherewith the seasonable month endows 
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 45 

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine ; 
Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves ; 
And mid-May's eldest child, 
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, 

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 50 

Darkling I listen ; and, for many a time 

I have been half in love with easeful Death, 

Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, 
To take into the air my quiet breath. 

Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 55 



246 ENGLISH POEMS 



To cease upon the midnight with no pain, 

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad 
In such an ecstasy ! 

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — 

To thy high requiem become a sod. 60 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! 

No hungry generations tread thee down : 
The voice I hear this passing night was heard 

In ancient days by emperor and clown; 
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 65 

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 
She stood in tears amid the alien corn; 
The same that oft-times , hath 
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam 

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70 

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell 

To toll me back from thee to my sole self! 
Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well 
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. 
Adieu ! adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades 75 

Past the near meadows, over the still stream, 
Up the hillside ; and now 't is buried deep 
In the next valley-glades : 
Was it a vision, or a waking dream? 

Fled is that music :— do I wake or sleep? 80 

1819. 1819. 

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN 
Thou still unravished bride of quietness; 

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time; 
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: 
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 5 

Of deities or mortals, or of both. 

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? 
What men or gods are these? what maidens loth? 
What mad pursuit? what struggle to escape? 

What pipes and timbrels? what wild ecstasy? 10 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on, 



JOHN KEATS 247 



Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, 

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone : 
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 15 

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare : 
Bold lover, never,, never canst thou kiss, 
Though winning near the goal — yet do not grieve; 
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss; 

Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 20 

Ah, happy, happy boughs ! that cannot shed 

Your leaves, nor ever bid the spring adieu; 
And happy melodist, unwearied. 

Forever piping songs forever new : 
More happy love! more happy, happy love! 25 

Forever warm and still to be enjoyed. 
Forever panting, and forever young; 
All breathing human passion far above. 

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, 

A burning forehead and a parching tongue. 30 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? 

To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies. 

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? 
What little town by river or sea-shore, 35 

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, 
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? 
And, little town, thy streets forever more 

Will silent be; and not a soul to tell 

Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 40 

O Attic shape ! fair attitude ! with brede 

Of marble men and maidens overwrought. 
With forest branches and the trodden weed; 

Thou, silent form ! dost tease us out of thought 
As doth eternity. Cold pastoral! 45 

When old age shall this generation waste. 

Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is all 

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 50 

_ 1819. 1820. 



248 ENGLISH POEMS 



TO AUTUMN 

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, 

Close bosom-friend of the maturing Sun, 
Conspiring with him how to load and bless 

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run ; 
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees, 5 

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; 

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells 

With a sweet kernel ; to set budding more, 
And still more, later flowers for the bees. 
Until they think warm days will never cease, 10 

For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find 
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor. 

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 15 

Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep. 

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook 
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers ; 
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 

Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20 

Or by a cider-press, with patient look. 

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. 

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? 

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too : 
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 25 

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue. 
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 
Among the river sallows, borne aloft 

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies ; 
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 30 

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft 
The red-breast whistles from a garden croft; 

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. 
1819. 1820. 

ODE ON MELANCHOLY 

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist 

Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; 



JOHN KEATS 240 



Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed 

By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; 
Make not your rosary of yew-berries, S 

Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be 
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl 
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries ; 

For shade to shade will come too drowsily. 

And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. 10 

But when the melancholy fit shall fall 

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud. 
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, 

And hides the green hill in an April shroud; 
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, IS 

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave. 
Or on the wealth of globed peonies ; 
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, 

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave, 

And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. 20 

She dwells with Beauty — Beauty that must die; 

And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips 
Bidding adieu ; and aching Pleasure nigh. 

Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips : 
Ay, in the very temple of Delight 25 

Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine. 

Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue 
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; 
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might. 

And be among her cloudy trophies hung. 30 

1819? 1820. 

THE EVE OF ST. AGNES 

St. Agnes' Eve — ah, bitter chill it was ! 
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; 
The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass. 
And silent was the flock in woolly fold ; 
Numb were the beadsman's fingers, while he told 5 

His rosary, and while his frosted breath. 
Like pious incense from a censer old, 
Seemed taking flight for heaven, without a death. 
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith. 



250 ENGLISH POEMS 



His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man ; 10 

Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees, 
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan, 
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees. 
The sculptured dead, on each side, seem to freeze, 
Emprisoned in black, purgatorial rails : 15 

Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat'ries, 
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails. 
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails. 

Northward he turneth through a little door. 
And scarce three steps ere Music's golden tongue 20 

Flattered to tears this aged man and poor; 
But no — already had his death-bell rung; 
The joys of all his life were said and sung; 
His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' eve : 
Another way he went, and soon among 25 

Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve, 
And all night kept awake, for sinners' sake to grieve. 

That ancient beadsman heard the prelude soft; 
And so it chanced, for many a door was wide, 
From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft, 30 

The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide; 
The level chambers, ready with their pride. 
Were glowing to receive a thousand guests; 
The carved angels, ever eager-eyed. 

Stared, where upon their heads the cornice rests, 35 

With hair blown back, and wings put cross-wise on their 
breasts. 

At length burst in the argent revelry. 
With plume, tiara, and all rich array, 
Numerous as shadows haunting faerily 
The brain, new stuffed, in youth, with triumphs gay 40 
Of old romance. These let us wish away, 
And turn, sole-thoughted, to one lady there. 
Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry day. 
On love, and winged St. Agnes' saintly care. 
As she had heard old dames full many times declare. 45 

They told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve, 
Young virgins might have visions of delight. 



JOHN KEATS 251 



And soft adorings from their loves receive 
Upon the honeyed middle of the night, 
If ceremonies due they did aright : 50 

As, supperless to bed they must retire, 
And couch supine their beauties, lily-white; 
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require 
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire. 

Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline : 55 

The music, yearning like a god in pain. 
She scarcely heard ; her maiden eyes divine, 
Fixed on the floor, saw many a sweeping train 
Pass by — she heeded not at all; in vain 
Came many a tip-toe, amorous cavalier, 60 

And back retired, not cooled by high disdain, 
But she saw not — her heart was otherwhere : 
She sighed for Agnes' dreams, the sweetest of the year. 

She danced along with vague, regardless eyes. 
Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short : 65 

The hallowed hour was near at hand ; she sighs 
Amid the timbrels, and the thronged resort 
Of whisperers in anger or in sport ; 
'Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn. 
Hoodwinked with faery fancy, all amort 70 

Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn, 
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn. 

So, purposing each moment to retire. 
She lingered still. Meantime, across the moors. 
Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire 75 

For Madeline. Beside the portal doors, 
Buttressed from moonlight, stands he, and implores 
All saints to give him sight of Madeline, 
But for one moment in the tedious hours. 
That he might gaze and worship all unseen ; 80 

Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss — in sooth such things 
have been. 

He ventures in : let no buzzed whisper tell ; 
All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords 
Will storm his heart. Love's fev'rous citadel : 



252 ENGLISH POEMS 



For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes, Ss 

Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords, 
Whose very dogs would execrations howl 
Against his lineage; not one breast affords 
Him any mercy, in that mansion foul. 
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul. 90 

Ah, happy chance ! the aged creature came, 
Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand, 
To where he stood, hid from the torch's flame, 
Behind a broad hall-pillar, far beyond 
The sound of merriment and chorus bland : 95 

He startled her ; but soon she knew his face. 
And grasped his fingers in her palsied hand, 
Saying, "Mercy, Porphyro ! hie thee from this place ; 
They are all here to-night, the whole blood-thirsty race ! 

"Get hence! get hence! there 's dwarfish Hildebrand; 100 
He had a fever late, and in the fit 
He cursed thee and thine, both house and land. 
Then there 's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit 
More tame for his gray hairs. — Alas me ! flit ! 
Flit like a ghost away." — "Ah, gossip dear, 105 

We 're safe enough ; here in this arm-chair sit. 
And tell me how" — "Good saints ! not here, not here ! 
Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier." 

He followed through a lowly arched way. 

Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume; no 

And as she muttered "Well-a — well-a-day !" 

He found him in a little moonlight room, 

Pale, latticed, chill, and silent as a tomb. 
"Now tell me where is Madeline," said he, 
"O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom 115 

Which none but secret sisterhood may see. 
When they St. Agnes' wool are weaving piously." 

"St. Agnes ! ah, it is St. Agnes' Eve — 
Yet men will murder upon holy days : 
Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve, 120 

And be liege-lord of all the elves and fays. 
To venture so; it fills me with amaze 



JOHN KEATS 253 



To see thee, Porphyro ! — St. Agnes's Eve ! 
God's help! my lady fair the conjuror plays 
This very night : good angels her deceive ! 125 

But let me laugh awhile, I 've mickle time to grieve." 

Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon, 
While Porphyro upon her face doth look. 
Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone 
Who keepeth closed a wondrous riddle-book, 130 

As spectacled she sits in chimney nook. 
But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told 
His lady's purpose ; and he scarce could brook 
Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold, 
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old, 135 

Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose. 
Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart 
Made purple riot ; then doth he propose 
A stratagem, that makes the beldame start : 
"A cruel man and impious thou art ! 140 

Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream 
Alone with her good angels, far apart 
From wicked men like thee. Go, go ! I deem 
Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem." 

"I will not harm her, by all saints I swear," 145 

Quoth Porphyro. "O may I ne'er find grace 
When my weak voice shall whisper its last prayer, 
If one of her soft ringlets I displace, 
Or look with ruffian passion in her face ! 
Good Angela, believe me by these tears; 150 

Or I will, even in a moment's space, 
Awake, with horrid shout, my foemen's ears. 
And beard them, though they be more fanged than wolves 
and bears." 

"Ah, why wilt thou afifright a feeble soul? 
A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing, 155 

Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll ; 
Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening. 
Were never missed." Thus plaining, doth she bring 
A gentler speech from burning Porphyro ; 



254 ENGLISH POEMS 



So woeful, and of such deep sorrowing, i6o 

That Angela gives promise she will do 
Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or woe. 

Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy. 
Even to Madeline's chamber, and there hide 
Him in a closet, of such privacy 165 

That he might see her beauty unespied, 
And win perhaps that night a peerless bride, 
While legioned faeries paced the coverlet. 
And pale enchantment held her sleepy-eyed. 
Never on such a night have lovers met, 170 

Since Merlin paid his demon all the monstrous debt. 

"It shall be as thou wishest," said the dame : 
"All cates and dainties shall be stored there 
Quickly on this feast-night ; by the tambour frame 

Her own lute thou wilt see : no time to spare, 175 

For I am slow and feeble, and scarce dare 

On such a catering trust my dizzy head. 

Wait here, my child, with patience; kneel in prayer 

The while. Ah, thou must needs the lady wed. 
Or may I never leave my grave among the dead." 180 

So saying, she hobbled oiif with busy fear. 
The lover's endless minutes slowly passed. 
The dame returned, and whispered in his ear 
To follow her, with aged eyes aghast 
From fright of dim espial. Safe at last, 185 

Through many a dusky gallery, they gain 
The maiden's chamber, silken, hushed, and chaste. 
Where Porphyro took covert, pleased amain. 
His poor guide hurried back, with agues in her brain. 

Her faltering hand upon the balustrade, rpo 

Old Angela was feeling for the stair. 
When Madeline, St. Agnes' charmed maid. 
Rose, like a missioned spirit, unaware. 
With silver taper's light, and pious care. 
She turned, and down the aged gossip led 195 

To a safe level matting. — Now prepare. 
Young Porphyro, for gazing on that bed : 
She comes, she comes again, like ring-dove frayed and fled. 



JOHN KEATS 



255 



Out went the taper as she hurried in ; 
Its Httle smoke, in paUid moonshine, died : 200 

She closed the door, she panted, all akin 
To spirits of the air and visions wide : 
No uttered syllable, or woe betide! 
But to her heart, her heart was voluble, 
Paining with eloquence her balmy side, 205 

As though a tongueless nightingale should swell 
Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell. 

A casement high and triple-arched there was, 
All garlanded with carven imageries 

Of fruits and flowers and bunches of knot-grass, 210 

And diamonded with panes of quaint device. 
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes 
As are the tiger-moth's deep damasked wings ; 
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries. 
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, 215 

A shielded scutcheon blushed with blood of queens and kings. 

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, 
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast. 
As down she knelt for Heaven's grace and boon; 
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, 220 

And on her silver cross soft amethyst. 
And on her hair a glory, like a saint: 
She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest, 
Save wings, for heaven. Porphyro grew faint, 
She knelt so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint. 225 

Anon his heart revives : her vespers done, 
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees; 
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one; 
Loosens her fragrant bodice ; by degrees 
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees; 230 

Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed, 
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees. 
In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed. 
But dares not look behind or all the charm is fled. 

Soon, trembling in her soft and chilly nest, 235 

In sort of wakeful swoon, perplexed she lay. 



256 ENGLISH POEMS 



Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppressed 
Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away ; 
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day; 
Blissfully havened both from joy and pain ; 240 

Clasped like a missal where swart Paynims pray; 
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain. 
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again. 

Stolen to this paradise, and so entranced, 
Porphyro gazed upon her empty dress, 245 

And listened to her breathing, if it chanced 
To wake into a slumberous tenderness ; 
Which when he heard, that minute did he bless. 
And breathed himself; then from the closet crept, 
Noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness, 250 

And over the hushed carpet, silent, stept, 
And 'tween the curtains peeped, where, lo ! how fast she 
slept. 

Then by the bedside, where the faded moon 
Made a dim, silver twihght, soft he set 
A table, and, half-anguished, threw thereon 255 

A cloth of woven crimson, gold, and jet — 
O for some drowsy Morphean amulet ! 
The boisterous, midnight, festive clarion, 
The kettle-drum, and far-heard clarionet 
Affray his ears, though but in dying tone ; 260 

The hall door shuts again, and all the noise is gone. 

And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep. 
In blanched linen, smooth and lavendered, 
While he from forth the closet brought a heap 
Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd; 265 

With jellies soother than the creamy curd, 
And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon ; 
Manna and dates, in argosy transferred 
From Fez ; and spiced dainties, every one, 
From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon. 270 

These delicates he heaped with glowing hand 
On golden dishes and in baskets bright 
Of wreathed silver; sumptuous they stand 



JOHN KEATS 257 



In the retired quiet of the night, 

Fining the chilly room with perfume light. 275 

"And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake! 
Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite ; 
Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes' sake. 
Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache." 

Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm 280 

Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream 
By the dusk curtains : 't was a midnight charm 
Impossible to melt as iced stream; 
The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam ; 
Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies. 285 

It seemed he never, never could redeem 
From such a stedfast spell his lady's eyes; 
So mused awhile, entoiled in woofed phantasies. 

Awakening up, he took her hollow lute — 
Tumultuous,— and in chords that tenderest be, 290 

He played an ancient ditty, long since mute, 
In Provence called "La belle dame sans mercy," 
Close to her ear touching the melody; 
Wherewith disturbed, she uttered a soft moan ; 
He ceased— she panted quick— and suddenly 295 

Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone ; 
Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured stone. 

Her eyes were open, but she still beheld, 
Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep : 
There was a painful change that nigh expelled 300 

The blisses of her dream so pure and deep ; 
At which fair Madeline began to weep. 
And moan forth witless words with many a sigh. 
While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep. 
Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye, 30S 

Fearing to move or speak, she looked so dreamingly, 

"Ah, Porphyro!" said she, "but even now 
Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear, 
Made tuneable with every sweetest vow; 
And those sad eyes were spritual and clear: 310 

How changed thou art ! how pallid, chill, and drear ! 



258 ENGLISH POEMS 



Give me that voice again, my Porphyro, 
Those looks immortal, those complainings dear ! 
Oh leave me not in this eternal woe. 
For if thou diest, my love, I know not where to go." 315 

Beyond a mortal man impassioned far 
At these voluptuous accents, he arose. 
Ethereal, flushed, and like a throbbing star 
Seen 'mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose; 
Into her dream he melted, as the rose 320 

Blendeth its odour with the violet — 
Solution sweet : meantime the frost-wind blows 
Like Love's alarum pattering the sharp sleet 
Against the window-panes; St. Agnes' moon hath set. 

'Tis dark; quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet. 325 

"This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline !" 
'Tis dark; the iced gusts still rave and beat. 
"No dream, alas ! alas ! and woe is mine ! 
Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine. — 
Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring? 330 

I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine. 
Though thou forsakest a deceived thing, 
A dove forlorn and lost, with sick unpruned wing." 

"My Madeline ! sweet dreamer ! lovely bride ! 
Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest? 335 

Thy beauty's shield, heart-shaped and vermeil-dyed? 
Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest 
After so many hours of toil and quest, 
A famished pilgrim — saved by miracle. 
Though I have found, I will not rob, thy nest, 34° 

Saving of thy sweet self ; if thou think'st well 
To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel. 

"Hark! 'tis an elfin-storm from faery land. 
Of haggard seeming but a boon indeed : 
Arise — arise! the morning is at hand; 345 

The bloated wassailers will never heed. 
Let us away, my love, with happy speed; 
There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see, — 
Drowned all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead. 



JOHN KEATS 259 



Awake ! arise ! my love, and fearless be, 350 

For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee." 

She hurried at his words, beset with fears, 

For there were sleeping dragons all around. 

At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears. — 

Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found: — 355 

In all the house was heard no human sound ; 

A chain-drooped lamp was flickering by each door ; 

The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound, 

Fluttered in the besieging wind's uproar ; 
And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor. 360 

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall; 
Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide, 
Where lay the porter, in uneasy sprawl. 
With a huge empty flaggon by his side. 
The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide, 365 
But his sagacious eye an inmate owns. 
By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide ; — 
The chains lie silent on the footworn stones ; — 
The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans. 

And they are gone; aye, ages long ago 370 

These lovers fled away into the storm. 
That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe; 
And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form 
Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm, 
Were long be-nightmared. Angela the old 375 

Died palsy-twitched, with meagre face deform. 
The beadsman, after thousand aves told, 
For aye unsought-for slept among his ashes cold. 
1819. 1820. 

FROM 

LAMIA 

Upon a time, before the faery broods 

Drove nymph and satyr from the prosperous woods, 

Before King Oberon's bright diadem. 

Sceptre, and mantle, clasped with dewy gem. 

Frighted away the dryads and the fauns 5 



26o ENGLISH POEMS 



From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslipped lawns, 

The ever-smitten Hermes empty left 

His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft : 

From high Olympus had he stolen light. 

On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight lo 

Of his great summoner, and made retreat 

Into a forest on the shores of Crete. 

For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt 

A nymph, to whom all hoofed satyrs knelt; 

At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured 15 

Pearls, while on land they withered and adored. 

Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont, 

And in those meads where sometime she might haunt. 

Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse, 

Though Fancy's casket were unlocked to choose. 20 

Ah, what a world of love was at her feet ! 

So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat 

Burnt from his winged heels to either ear, 

That from a whiteness, as the lily clear. 

Blushed into roses 'mid his golden hair, 25 

Fallen in jealous curls about his shoulders bare. 

From vale to vale, from wood to wood, he flew. 
Breathing upon the flowers his passion new, 
And wound with many a river to its head. 
To find where this sweet nymph prepared her secret bed: 30 
In vain; the sweet nymph might nowhere be found, 
And so he rested, on the lonely ground. 
Pensive, and full of painful jealousies 
Of the wood-gods and even the very trees. 
There as he stood, he heard a mournful voice, 35 

Such as, once heard, in gentle heart destroys 
All pain but pity ; thus the lone voice spake : 
"When from this wreathed tomb shall I awake ! 
When move in a sweet body fit for life, 
And love, and pleasure, and the ruddy strife 40 

Of hearts and lips ! Ah, miserable me !" 
The god, dove-footed, glided silently 
Round bush and tree, soft-brushing, in his speed, 
The taller grasses and full-flowering weed. 
Until he found a palpitating snake, 45 

Bright and cirque-couchant in a dusky brake. 



JOHN KEATS 261 



She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue, 
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue; 
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard, 
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barred; 50 

And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed, 
Dissolved, or brighter shone, or interwreathed 
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries ; — 
So rainbow-sided, touched with miseries, 

She seemed, at once, some penanced lady elf, 55 

Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self. 
Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire 
Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne's tiar; 
Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet ! 
She had a woman's mouth with all its peafls complete; 60 

And for her eyes — what could such eyes do there 
But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair. 
As Proserpine still weeps for her Sicilian air? 
Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake 
Came, as through bubbling honey, for Love's sake, 65 

And thus ; while Hermes on his pinions lay. 
Like a stooped falcon ere he takes his prey : — 

"Fair Hermes, crowned with feathers, fluttering light, 
I had a splendid dream of thee last night: 
I saw thee sitting, on a throne of gold, 70 

Among the gods, upon Olympus old. 
The only sad one; for thou didst not hear 
The soft, lute-fingered Muses chaunting clear. 
Nor even Apollo when he sang alone. 

Deaf to his throbbing throat's long, long melodious moan. 75 
I dreamt I saw thee, robed in purple flakes, 
Break amorous through the clouds, as morning breaks. 
And, swiftly as a bright Phoebean dart. 
Strike for the Cretan isle; and here thou art! 
Too gentle Hermes, hast thou found the maid?" 80 

Whereat the star of Lethe not delayed 
His rosy eloquence, and thus inquired : 
"Thou smooth-lipped serpent, surely high inspired ! 
Thou beauteous wreath, with melancholy eyes, 
Possess whatever bliss thou canst devise, 85 

Telling me only where my nymph is fled, — 
Where she doth breathe!" "Bright planet, thou hast said," 



262 ENGLISH POEMS 



Returned the snake, "but seal with oaths, fair god!" 
"I swear," said Hermes, "by my serpent rod. 

And by thine eyes, and by thy starry crown !" 90 

Light flew his earnest words, among the blossoms blown. 

Then thus again the brilliance feminine : 
"Too frail of heart ! for this lost nymph of thine, 

Free as the air, invisibly, she strays 

About these thornless wilds ; her pleasant days 95 

She tastes unseen; unseen her nimble feet 

Leave traces in the grass and flowers sweet; 

From weary tendrils, and bowed branches green. 

She plucks the fruit unseen, she bathes unseen: ' 

And by my power is her beauty veiled 100 

To keep it unaffronted, unassailed 

By the love-glances of unlovely eyes. 

Of satyrs, fauns, and bleared Silenus' sighs. 

Pale grew her immortality, for woe 

Of all these lovers, and she grieved so 105 

I took compassion on her, bade her steep 

Her hair in weird syrops, that would keep 

Her loveliness invisible, yet free 

To wander as she loves, in liberty. 

Thou shalt behold her, Hermes, thou alone, no 

If thou wilt, as thou swearest, grant my boon !" 

Then, once again, the charmed god began 

An oath, and through the serpent's ears it ran 

Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian. 

Ravished, she lifted her Circean head, 115 

'Blushed a live damask, and swift-lisping said, 
"I was a woman; let me have once more 

A woman's shape, and charming as before. 

I love a youth of Corinth — O the bliss ! 

Give me my woman's form, and place me where he is. 120 

Stoop, Hermes, let me breathe upon thy brow. 

And thou shalt see thy sweet nymph even now." 

The god on half-shut feathers sank serene; 

She breathed upon his eyes ; and swift was seen 

Of both the guarded nymph near-smiling on the green. 125 

It was no dream; or say a dream it was. 

Real are the dreams of gods, and smoothly pass 

Their pleasures in a long immortal dream. 

One warm, flushed moment, hovering, it might seem 



JOHN KEATS . 263 



Dashed by the wood-nymph's beauty, so he burned; 130 

Then, lighting on the printless verdure, turned 

To the swooned serpent, and with languid arm. 

Delicate, put to proof the lithe Caducean charm. 

So done, upon the nymph his eyes he bent 

Full of adoring tears and blandishment, 13S 

And towards her stept ; she, like a moon in wane. 

Faded before him, cowered, nor could restrain 

Her fearful sobs, self-folding like a flower 

That faints into itself at evening hour. 

But the god fostering her chilled hand, 140 

She felt the warmth, her eyelids opened bland. 

And, like new flowers at morning song of bees, 

Bloomed, and gave up her honey to the lees. 

Into the green-recessed woods they flew; 

Nor grew they pale, as mortal lovers do. 145 

Left to herself, the serpent now began 
To change : her elfin blood in madness ran, 
Her mouth foamed, and the grass, therewith besprent. 
Withered at dew so sweet and virulent ; 

Her eyes, in torture fixed and anguish drear, 150 

Hot, glazed, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear, 
Flashed phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cooling tear. 
The colours all inflamed throughout her train. 
She writhed about, convulsed with scarlet pain; 
A deep volcanian yellow took the place 155 

Of all her milder-mooned body's grace, 
And, as the lava ravishes the mead, 
Spoilt all her silver mail and golden brede, 
Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks, and bars. 
Eclipsed her crescents, and licked up her stars : 160 

So that, in moments few, she was undrest 
Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst, 
And rubious-argent; of all these bereft. 
Nothing but pain and ugliness were left. 
Still shone her crown; that vanished, also she 165 

Melted and disappeared as suddenly; 
And in the air, her new voice luting soft. 
Cried, "Lycius ! gentle Lycius !" — Borne aloft 
With the bright mists about the mountains hoar. 
These words dissolved : Crete's forests heard no more. 170 
1819. 1820. 



264 ENGLISH POEMS 



LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight. 

Alone and palely loitering? 
The sedge is withered from the lake. 

And no birds sing. 

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, 5 

So haggard and so woe-begone? 
The squirrel's granary is full, 

And the harvest 's done. 

I see a lily on thy brow. 

With anguish moist and fever dew; 10 

And on thy cheek a fading rose 

Fast withereth too. 

I met a lady in the meads, 

Full beautiful, a faery's child ; 
Her hair was long, her foot was light, 15 

And her eyes were wild. 

I set her on my pacing steed, 

And nothing else saw all day long, 
For sideways would she lean, and sing 

A faery's song. 20 

I made a garland for her head, 

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; 
She looked at me as she did love, 

And made sweet moan. 

She found me roots of relish sweet, 25 

And honey wild, and manna dew; 
And sure in language strange she said, 
"I love thee true." 

She took me to her elfin grot, 

And there she gazed and sighed deep, 30 

And there I shut her wild sad eyes — 

So kissed to sleep. 

And there we slumbered on the moss ; 

And there I dreamed, ah woe betide. 
The latest dream I ever dreamed, 35 

On the cold hillside. 



WALTER SAVAGE LAN DOR 265 

I saw pale kings and princes too, 

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all. 

Who cried — "La belle dame sans merci 

Hath thee in thrall !" 40 

I saw their starved lips in the gloom 
With horrid warning gaped wide — 

And I awoke, and found me here 
On the cold hillside. 

And this is why I sojourn here, 43 

Alone and palely loitering, 
Though the sedge is withered from the lake, 

And no birds sing. 

1819. ■ 1820. 

BRIGHT STAR, WOULD I WERE STEADFAST 
AS THOU ART 

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art — 

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, 
And watching, with eternal lids apart, 

Like Nature's patient, sleepless eremite. 
The moving waters at their priest-like task 5 

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, 
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask 

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors : — 
No; yet still steadfast, still unchangeable. 

Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, 10 

To feel forever its soft fall and swell. 

Awake forever in a sweet unrest ; 
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath. 
And so live ever — or else swoon to death. 

1820. 1846. 

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 

AH, WHAT AVAILS THE SCEPTRED RACE 

Ah, what avails the sceptred race, 

Ah, what the form divine ! 
What every virtue, every grace ! 

Rose Aylmer, all were thine. 



266 ENGLISH POEMS 



Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes 

May weep, but never see, 
A night of memories and sighs 

I consecrate to thee. 

1806. 

MILD IS THE PARTING YEAR, AND SWEET 

Mild is the parting year, and sweet 
The odour of the falling spray; 
Life passes on more rudely fleet. 

And balmless is its closing day. 
I wait its close, I court its gloom. 

But mourn that never must there fall 
Or on my breast or on my tomb 

Tht tear that would have soothed it all. 

1831. 

A FIESOLAN IDYL 

Here, where precipitate Spring with one light bound 

Into hot Summer's lusty arms expires. 

And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night. 

Soft airs that want the lute to play with 'em. 

And softer sighs that know not what they want, 

Aside a wall, beneath an orange-tree, 

Whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones 

Of sights in Fiesole right up above, 

While I was gazing a few paces off 

At what they seemed to show me with their nods, 

Their frequent whispers and their pointing shoots, 

A gentle maid came down the garden-steps 

And gathered the pure treasure in her lap. 

I heard the branches rustle, and stept forth 

To drive the ox away, or mule, or goat, — 

Such I believed it must be. How could I 

Let beast o'erpower them? when hath wind or rain 

Borne hard upon weak plant that wanted me. 

And I (however they might bluster round) 

Walkt off? 'Twere most ungrateful; for sweet scents 

Are the swift vehicles of still sweeter thoughts. 

And nurse and pillow the dull memory 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 267 

That would let drop without them her best stores. 

They bring me tales of youth and tones of love, 

And 't is and ever was my wish and way 25 

To let all flowers live freely, and all die 

(Whene'er their Genius bids their souls depart) 

Among their kindred in their native place. 

I never pluck the rose; the violet's head 

Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank 30 

And not reproacht me; the ever-sacred cup 

Of the pure lily hath between my hands 

Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost one grain of gold. 

I saw the light that made the glossy leaves 

More glossy; the fair arm, the fairer cheek 35 

Warmed by the eye intent on its pursuit; 

I saw the foot that, although half-erect 

From its gray slipper, could not lift her up 

To what she wanted. I held down a branch 

And gathered her some blossoms, since their hour 40 

Was come, and bees had wounded them, and flies 

Of harder wing were working their way thro' 

And scattering them in fragments under foot. 

So crisp were some, they rattled unevolved; 

Others, ere broken off, fell into shells, 45 

Unbending, brittle, lucid, white like snow. 

And like snow not seen thro', by eye or sun; 

Yet every one her gown received from me 

Was fairer than the first. I thought not so, 

But so she praised them to reward my care. 50 

I said, "You find the largest." "This indeed," 

Cried she, "is large and sweet." She held one forth, 

Whether for me to look at or to take 

She knew not, nor did I ; but taking it 

Would best have solved (and this she felt) her doubt. 55 

I dared not touch it; for it seemed a part 

Of her own self — fresh, full, the most mature 

Of blossoms, yet a blossom ; with a touch 

To fall, and yet unfallen. She drew back 

The boon she tendered, and then, finding not 60 

The ribbon at her waist to fix it in, 

Dropt it, as loth to drop it, on the rest. 

1831. 



268 ENGLISH POEMS 



THE DEATH OF ARTEMIDORA 

"Artemidora ! gods invisible, 
While thou art lying faint along the couch, 
Have tied the sandal to thy slender feet 
And stand beside thee, ready to convey 

Thy weary steps where other rivers flow. 5 

Refreshing shades will waft thy weariness 
Away, and voices like thy own come near 
And nearer, and solicit an embrace." 
Artemidora sighed, and would have prest 
The hand now pressing hers, but was too weak. lo 

Iris stood over her dark hair unseen 
While thus Elpenor spake. He lookt into 
Eyes that had given light and life erewhile 
To those above them, but now dim with tears 
And wakefulness. Again he spake of joy 15 

Eternal. At that word, that sad word joy, 
Faithful and fond her bosom heaved once more. 
Her head fell back: and now a loud deep sob 
Swelled through the darkened chamber; 'twas not hers, 

1836. 

THE HAMADRYAD 

Rhaicos was born amid the hills wherefrom 

Gnidos, the light of Caria, is discerned. 

And small are the white-crested that play near, 

And smaller onward are the purple waves. 

Thence festal choirs were visible, all crowned 5 

With rose and myrtle if they were inborn; 

If from Pandion sprang they, on the coast 

Where stern Athene raised her citadel. 

Then olive was entwined with violets 

Clustered in bosses, regular and large. 10 

For various men wore various coronals. 

But one was their devotion ; 't was to her 

Whose laws all follow, her whose smile withdraws 

The sword from Ares, thunderbolt from Zeus, 

And whom in his chill caves the mutable 15 

Of mind, Poseidon, the sea-king, reveres. 

And whom his brother, stubborn Dis, hath prayed 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 269 

To turn in pity the averted cheek 

Of her he bore away, with promises, 

Nay, with loud oath before dread Styx itself, 20 

To give her daily more and sweeter flowers 

Than he made drop from her on Enna's dell; 
Rhaicos was looking from his father's door 

At the long trains that hastened to the town 

From all the valleys, like bright rivulets 25 

Gurgling with gladness, wave outrunning wave, 

And thought it hard he might not also go 

And offer up one prayer, and press one hand, 

He knew not whose. The father called him in 

And said, "Son Rhaicos ! those are idle games ; 30 

Long enough I have lived to find them so." 

And ere he ended, sighed; as old men do 

Always, to think how idle such games are. 
"I have not yet," thought Rhaicos in his heart, 

And wanted proof. "Suppose .thou go and help 35 

Echelon at the hill, to bark yon oak 

And lop its branches off, before we delve 

About the trunk and ply the root with axe ; 

This we may do in winter." 

Rhaicos went; 

For thence he could see farther, and see more 40 

Of those who hurried to the city-gate. 

Echelon he found there, with naked arm 

Swart-haired, strong-sinewed, and his eyes intent 

Upon the place where first the axe should fall : 

He held it upright. "There are bees about, 45 

Or wasps, or hornets," said the cautious eld, 
"Look sharp, O son of Thallinos !" The youth 

Inclined his ear, afar, and warily. 

And caverned in his hand. He heard a buzz 

At first, and then the sound grew soft and clear, 50 

And then divided into what seemed tune, 

And there were words upon it, plaintive words. 

He turned, and said, "Echeion ! do not strike 

That tree; it must be hollow, for some god 

Speaks from within. Come thyself near." Again 55 

Both turned toward it ; and behold ! there sat 

Upon the moss below, with her two palms 



270 ENGLISH POEMS 



Pressing it, on each side, a maid in form. 

Downcast were her long eyelashes, and pale 

Her cheek, but never mountain-ash displayed 60 

Berries of colour like her lips so pure. 

Nor were the anemones about her hair 

Soft, smooth, and wavering like the face beneath. 

"What dost thou here?" Echelon, half-afraid, 
Half-angry, cried. She lifted up her eyes, 65 

But nothing spake she. Rhaicos drew one step 
Backward, for fear came likewise over him, 
But not such fear: he panted, gaspt, drew in 
His breath, and would have turned it into words, 
But could not into one. 

"O send away 70 

That sad old man !" said she. The old man went 
Without a warning from his master's son, 
Glad to escape, for sorely he now feared; 
And the axe shone behind him in their eyes. 

Hamad. And wouldst thou too shed the most innocent 75 
Of blood? No vow demands it; no god wills 
The oak to bleed. 

Rhaicos. Who art thou? whence? why here? 

And whither wouldst thou go? Among the robed 
In white or saffron, or the hue that most 
Resembles dawn or the clear sky, is none 80 

Arrayed as thou art. What so beautiful 
As that gray robe which clings about thee close, 
Like moss to stones adhering, leaves to trees. 
Yet lets thy bosom rise and fall in turn. 
As, toucht by zephyrs, fall and rise the boughs 85 

Of graceful platane by the river-side? 

Hamad. Lovest thou well thy father's house? 

Rhaicos. Indeed 

I love it, well I love it, yet would leave 
For thine, where'er it be, my father's house. 
With all the marks upon the door, that show 90 

My growth at every birthday since the third. 
And all the charms, o'erpoweririg evil eyes. 
My mother nailed for me against my bed. 
And the Cydonian bow (which thou shalt see) 
Won in my race last spring from Eutychos. 95 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 271 

Hamad. Bethink thee what it is to leave a home 
Thou never yet hast left, one night, one day. 

Rhaicos. No, 't is not hard to leave it ; 't is not hard 
To leave, O maiden, that paternal home, 

If there be one on earth whom we may love 100 

First, last, forever, one who says that she 
Will love forever too. To say which word. 
Only to say it, surely is enough — 
It shows such kindness — if 't were possible 
We at the moment think she would indeed. 105 

Hamad. Who taught thee all this folly at thy age? 

Rhaicos. I have seen lovers and have learnt to love. 

Hamad. But wilt thou spare the tree? 

Rhaicos. My father wants 

The bark ; the tree may hold its place awhile. 

Hamad. Awhile! thy father numbers then my days? no 

Rhaicos. Are there no others where the moss beneath 
Is quite as tufty? Who would send thee forth, 
Or ask thee why thou tarriest? Is thy flock 
Anywhere near? 

Hamad. I have no flock: I kill 

Nothing that breathes, that stirs, that feels the air, 115 

The sun, the dew. Why should the beautiful 
(And thou art beautiful) disturb the source 
Whence springs all beauty? Hast thou never heard 
Of hamadryads? 

Rhaicos. Heard of them I have; 

Tell me some tale about them. May I sit 120 

Beside thy feet? Art thou not tired? The herbs 
Are very soft ; I will not come too nigh ; 
Do but sit there, nor tremble so, nor doubt. 
Stay, stay an instant : let me first explore 
If any acorn of last year be left 125 

Within it; thy thin robe too ill protects 
Thy dainty limbs against the harm one small 
Acorn may do. Here 's none. Another day 
Trust me; till then let me sit opposite. 

Hamad. I seat me; be thou seated, and content. 130 

Rhaicos. O sight for gods ! ye men below, adore 
The Aphrodite! Is she there below? 
Or sits she here before me? as she sate 



272 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Before the shepherd on those highths that shade 

The Hellespont, and brought his kindred woe. 135 

Hamad. Reverence the higher Powers ; nor deem amiss 
Of her who pleads to thee, and would repay — 
Ask not how much — but very much. Rise not — 
No, Rhaicos, no ! Without the nuptial vow 
Love is unholy. Swear to me that none 140 

Of mortal maids shall ever taste thy kiss, 
Then take thou mine; then take it, not before. 

Rhaicos. Hearken, all gods above! O Aphrodite 

Here ! Let my vow be ratified ! 

But wilt thou come into my father's house? 145 

Hamad. Nay; and of mine I cannot give thee part. 

Rhaicos. Where is it? 

Hamad. In this oak. 

Rhaicos. Ay, now begins 

The tale of hamadryad; tell it through. 

Hamad. Pray of thy father never to cut down 
My tree; and promise him, as well thou mayst, 150 

That every year he shall receive from me 
More honey than will buy him nine fat sheep. 
More wax than he will burn to all the gods. 
Why fallest thou upon thy face? Some thorn 
May scratch it, rash young man! Rise up; for shame! 155 

Rhaicos. For shame I cannot rise. O pity me! 

1 dare not sue for love — but do not hate! 

Let me once more behold thee — not once more. 

But many days ; let me love on — unloved ! 

I aimed too high : on my own head the bolt 160 

Falls back, and pierces to the very brain. 

Hamad. Go — rather go than make me say I love. 

Rhaicos. If happiness is immortality 
(And whence enjoy it else the gods above?) 
I am immortal too : my vow is heard — 165 

Hark ! on the left. — Nay, turn not from me now, 
I claim my kiss. 

Hamad. Do men take first, then claim? 

Do thus the seasons run their course with them? 

Her lips were sealed; her head sank on his breast. 
'T is said that laughs were heard within the wood ; 170 



WALTER SAVAGE LAN DOR 273 

But who should hear them? and whose laughs? and why? 

Savoury was the smell, and long past noon, 
Thallinos, in thy house; for marjoram, 
Basil and mint, and thyme and rosemary, 
Were sprinkled on the kid's well-roasted length, 175 

Awaiting Rhaicos. Home he came at last, 
Not hungry, but pretending hunger keen. 
With head and eyes just o'er the maple plate. 
"Thou seest but badly, coming from the sun. 
Boy Rhaicos !" said the father. "That oak's bark 180 

Must have been tough, with little sap between; 
It ought to run ; but it and I are old." 
Rhaicos, although each morsel of the bread 
Increased by chewing, and the meat grew cold 
And tasteless to his palate, took a draught 185 

Of gold-bright wine, which, thirsty as he was. 
He thought not of, until his father filled 
The cup, averring water was amiss. 
But wine had been at all times poured on kid — 
It was religion. 

He, thus fortified, IQO 

Said, not quite boldly and not quite abasht, 
"Father, that oak is Zeus's own ; that oak 
Year after year will bring thee wealth from wax 
And honey. There is one who fears the gods 
And the gods love; — that one" (he blushed, nor said 195 

What one) "hast promist this, and may do more. 
Thou hast not many moons to wait until 
The bees have done their best ; if then there come 
Nor wax nor honey, let the tree be hewn." 

"Zeus hath bestowed on thee a prudent mind," 200 

Said the glad sire; "but look thou often there. 
And gather all the honey thou canst find 
In every crevice, over and above 
What has been promist; would they reckon that?" 

Rhaicos went daily; but the nymph as oft, 205 

Invisible. To play at love, she knew. 
Stopping its breathings when it breathes most soft, 
Is sweeter than to play on any pipe. 
She played on his : she fed upon his sighs ; 
They pleased her when they gently waved her hair, 210 



274 ENGLISH POEMS 



Cooling the pulses of her purple veins ; 

And when her absence brought them out, they pleased. 

Even among the fondest of them all, 

What mortal or immortal maid is more 

Content with giving happiness than pain? 215 

One day he was returning from the wood 

Despondently. She pitied him, and said, 
"Come back !" and twined her fingers in the hem 

Above his shoulder. Then she led his steps 

To a cool rill that ran o'er level sand 220 

Through lentisk and through oleander; there 

Bathed she his feet, lifting them on her lap 

When bathed, and drying them in both her hands. 

He dared complain; for those who most are loved 

Most dare it; but not harsh was his complaint. 225 

"O thou inconstant !" said he, "if stern law 

Bind thee, or will, stronger than sternest law, 

O, let me know henceforward when to hope 

The fruit of love that grows for me but here." 

He spake; and pluckt it from its pliant stem. 230 

"Impatient Rhaicos ! Why thus intercept 

The answer I would give? There is a bee 

Whom I have fed, a bee who knows my thoughts 

And executes my wishes : I will send 

That messenger. If ever thou art false, 235 

Drawn by another, own it not, but drive 

My bee away; then shall I know my fate, 

And — for thou must be wretched — weep at thine. 

But often as my heart persuades to lay 

Its cares on thine and throb itself to rest, 240 

Expect her with thee, whether it be morn 

Or eve, at any time when woods are safe." 
Day after day the Hours beheld them blest. 

And season after season : years had past, 

Blest were they still. He who asserts that Love 245 

Ever is sated of sweet things, the same 

Sweet things he fretted for in earlier days, 

Never, by Zeus ! loved he a hamadryad. 

The nights had now grown longer, and perhaps 

The hamadryads find them lone and dull 250 

Among their woods ; one did, alas ! She called 



WALTER SAVAGE LAN DOR 275 

Her faithful bee ; 't was when all bees should sleep, 

And all did sleep but hers. She was sent forth 

To bring that light which never wintry blast 

Blows out, nor rain nor snow extinguishes, 255 

The light that shines from loving eyes upon 

Eyes that love back, till they can see no more. 

Rhaicos was sitting at his father's hearth : 
Between them stood the table, not o'erspread 
With fruits which autumn now profusely bore, 260 

Nor anise cakes, nor odorous wine, but there 
The draft-board was expanded; at which game 
Triumphant sat old Thallinos; the son 
Was puzzled, vext, discomforted, distraught. 
A buzz was at his ear; up went his hand, 265 

And it was heard no longer. The poor bee 
Returned (but not until the morn shone bright). 
And found the hamadryad with her head 
Upon her aching wrist, and showed one wing 
Half broken off, the other's meshes marred, 270 

And there were bruises which no eye could see 
Saving a hamadryad's. At this sight 
Down fell the languid brow, both hands fell down; 
A shriek was carried to the ancient hall 

Of Thallinos : he heard it not ; his son 275 

Heard it, and ran forthwith into the wood. 
No bark was on the tree, no leaf was green. 
The trunk was riven through. From that day forth 
Nor word nor whisper soothed his ear, nor sound 
Even of insect wing; but loud laments 280 

The woodmen and the shepherds one long year 
Heard day and night, for Rhaicos would not quit 
The solitary place, but moaned and died. 

Hence milk and honey wonder not, O guest, 
To find set duly on the hollow stone. 285 



1846. 



WITH AN ALBUM 

I know not whether I am proud. 
But this I know, I hate the crowd; 
Therefore pray let me disengage 
My verses from the motley page. 



276 ENGLISH POEMS 



Where others far more sure to please 5 

Pour out their choral song with ease. 

And yet perhaps, if some should tire 

With too much froth or too much fire, 

There is an ear that may incline 

Even to words so dull as mine. 10 



1846. 



TO AGE 

Welcome, old friend ! These many years 

Have we lived door by door; 
The Fates have laid aside their shears 

Perhaps for some few more. 

I was indocile at an age 5 

When better boys were taught; 
But thou at length hast made me sage, 

If I am sage in aught. 

Little I know from other men, 

Too little they from me; lO 

But thou hast pointed well the pen 

That writes these lines to thee. 

Thanks for expelling Fear and Hope — 

One vile, the other vain; 
One 's scourge, the other 's telescope, 15 

I shall not see again. 

Rather what lies before my feet 

My notice shall engage : 
He who hath braved Youth's dizzy heat 

Dreads not the frost of Age. 20 

1853. 

I STROVE WITH NONE 

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. 
Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art. 
I warmed both hands before the fire of Life; 
It sinks, and I am ready to depart. 

1853. 



ALFRED TENNYSON 2'j'j 



ALFRED TENNYSON 

CLARIBEL 

A MELODY 

Where Claribel low-lieth 

The breezes pause and die, 
Letting the rose-leaves fall; 
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth, 

Thick-leaved, ambrosial, 5 

With an ancient melody 
Of an inward agony. 
Where Claribel low-lieth. 

At eve the beetle boometh 

Athwart the thicket lone; lo 

At noon the wild bee hummeth 

About the mossed headstone ; 
At midnight the moon cometh. 

And looketh down alone. 
Her song the lintwhite swelleth, 15 

The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth, 

The callow throstle lispeth. 
The slumbrous wave outwelleth. 

The babbling runnel crispeth, 
The hollow grot replieth, 20 

Where Claribel low-lieth. 



1830. 



THE LADY OF SHALOTT 

PART I 

On either side the river lie 
Long fields of barley and of rye, 
That clothe the wold and meet the sky 
And thro' the field the road runs by 

To many-towered Camelot; 
And up and down the people go. 
Gazing where the lilies blow 
Round an island there below. 

The island of Shalott 



278 ENGLISH POEMS 



V/illows whiten, aspens quiver, 10 

Little breezes dusk and shiver 
Thro' the wave that runs forever 
By the island in the river. 

Flowing down to Camelot. 
Four gray walls, and four gray towers, 15 

Overlook a space of flowers, 
And the silent isle imbowers 

The Lady of Shalott. 

By the margin, willow-veiled, 

Slide the heavy barges trailed 20 

By slow horses ; and unbailed 

The shallop flitteth silken-sailed. 

Skimming down to Camelot: 
But who hath seen her wave her hand? 
Or at the casement seen her stand? 25 

Or is she known in all the land. 

The Lady of Shalott? 

Only reapers, reaping early 

In among the bearded barley, 

Hear a song that echoes cheerly 30 

From the river winding clearly, 

Down to towered Camelot: 
And by the moon the reaper weary. 
Piling sheaves in uplands airy. 
Listening, whispers, " ' T is the fairy 35 

Lady of Shalott." 



There she weaves by night and day 

A magic web with colours gay. 

She has heard a whisper say 

A curse is on her if she stay 40 

To look down to Camelot. 
She knows not what the curse may be. 
And so she weaveth steadily. 
And little other care hath she. 

The Lady of Shalott. 45 



ALFRED TENNYSON 279 

And moving thro' a mirror clear, 
That hangs before her all the year, 
Shadows of the world appear : 
There she sees the highway near, 

Winding down to Camelot; 50 

There the river eddy whirls, 
And there the surly village-churls, 
And the red cloaks of market girls. 

Pass onward from Shalott. 

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad, 55 

An abbot on an ambling pad, 
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad, 
Or long-haired page in crimson clad. 

Goes by to towered Camelot; 
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue 60 

The knights come riding two and two: 
She hath no loyal knight and true. 

The Lady of Shalott. 

But in her web she still delights 

To weave the mirror's magic sights, 65 

For often thro' the silent nights 

A funeral, with plumes and lights 

And music, went to Camelot; 
Or when the moon was overhead. 

Came two young lovers lately wed : 70 

''I am half sick of shadows," said 
The Lady of Shalott. 



PART III 

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, 

He rode between the barley-sheaves; 

The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, 75 

And flamed upon the brazen greaves 

Of bold Sir Lancelot. 
A red-cross knight for ever kneeled 
To a lady in his shield. 
That sparkled on the yellow field, 80 

Beside remote Shalott. 



28o ENGLISH POEMS 



The gemmy bridle glittered free, 

Like to some branch of stars we see 

Hung in the golden Galaxy; 

The bridle bells rang merrily 85 

As he rode down to Camelot; 
And, from his blazoned baldric slung, 
A mighty silver bugle hung, 
And as he rode his armour rung, 

Beside remote Shalott. 90 

All in the blue unclouded weather 
Thick jewelled shone the saddle-leather; 
Th'e helmet and the helmet-feather 
Burned like one burning flame together. 

As he rode down to Camelot : 95 

As often thro' the purple night. 
Below the starry clusters bright, 
Some bearded meteor, trailing light, 

Moves over still Shalott. 

His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed; 100 

On burnished hooves his war-horse trode; 
From underneath his helmet flowed 
His coal-black curls as on he rode. 

As he rode down to Camelot. 
From the bank and from the river 105 

He flashed into the crystal mirror. 
"Tirra lirra," by the river 

Sang Sir Lancelot. 

She left the web, she left the loom, 

She made three paces thro' the room, no 

She saw the water-lily bloom, 

She saw the helmet and the plume. 

She looked down to Camelot. 
Out flew the web and floated wide; 
The mirror cracked from side to side: 115 

"The curse is come upon me," cried 

The Lady of Shalott. 



ALFRED TENNYSON 281 



PART IV 

In the stormy east-wind straining, 

The pale yellow woods were waning, 

The broad stream in his banks complaining, 120 

Heavily the low sky raining. 

Over towered Camelot. 
Down she came and found a boat 
Beneath a willow left afloat, 
And round about the prow she wrote, 125 

The Lady of Shalott. 

And down the river's dim expanse. 

Like some bold seer in a trance, 

Seeing all his own mischance, 

With a glassy countenance ^30 

Did she look to Camelot. 
And at the closing of the day 
She loosed the chain, and down she lay; 
The broad stream bore her far away. 

The Lady of Shalott. US 

Lying, robed in snowy white 
That loosely flew to left and right— 
The leaves upon her falling light, — 
Thro' the noises of the night 

She floated down to Camelot : 140 

And as the boat-head wound along, 
The willowy hills and fields among. 
They heard her singing her last song. 

The Lady of Shalott: 

Heard a carol, mournful, holy, I4S 

Chanted loudly, chanted lowly. 
Till her blood was frozen slowly. 
And her eyes were darkened wholly. 

Turned to towered Camelot; 
For ere she reached upon the tide 150 

The first house by the water-side. 
Singing, in her song she died. 

The Lady of Shalott. 



282 ENGLISH POEMS 



Under tower and balcony, 

By garden-wall and gallery, 155 

A gleaming shape she floated by, 

Dead-pale between the houses high, 

Silent into Camelot. 
Out upon the wharfs they came. 

Knight and burgher, lord and dame, 160 

And round the prow they read her name, 

The Lady of Shalott. 

Who is this? and what is here? 

And in the lighted palace near 

Died the sound of royal cheer; 165 

And they crossed themselves for fear, 

All the knights at Camelot. 
But Lancelot mused a little space : 
He said, "She has a lovely face; 
God in his mercy lend her grace, 170 

The Lady of Shalott." 



1832. 



THE PALACE OF ART 

I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house, 

Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. 
I said, "O soul, make merry and carouse, 
Dear soul, for all is well." 

A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnished brass 5 

I chose. The ranged ramparts bright 
From level meadow-bases of deep grass 
Suddenly scaled the light. 

Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf 

The rock rose clear, or winding stair. 10' 

My soul would live alone unto herself 
In her high palace there. 

And "while the world runs round and round," I said, 

"Reign thou apart, a quiet king. 
Still as, while Saturn whirls, his steadfast shade 15 

Sleeps on his luminous ring." 



ALFRED TENNYSON 283 

To which my soul made answer readily: 

"Trust me, in bliss I shall abide 
In this great mansion that is built for me, 

So royal-rich and wide." 20 

********** 
********** 

Four courts I made, east, west, and south, and north; 

In each a squared lawn, wherefrom 
The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth 
A flood of fountain-foam. 

And round the cool green courts there ran a row 25 

Of cloisters, branched like mighty woods. 
Echoing all night to that sonorous flow 
Of spouted fountain-floods; 

And round the roofs a gilded gallery, 

That lent broad verge to distant lands, 30 

Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky 
Dipt down to sea and sands. 

From those four jets four currents in one swell 

Across the mountain streamed below 
In misty folds, that, floating as they fell, 35 

Lit up a torrent-bow. 

And high on every peak a statue seemed 

To hang on tiptoe, tossing up 
A cloud of incense of all odour steamed 

From out a golden cup. 40 

So that she thought, "And who shall gaze upon 

My palace with unblinded eyes, 
While this great bow will waver in the sun. 
And that sweet incense rise?" 

For that sweet incense rose and never failed ; 45 

And, while day sank or mounted higher. 
The light aerial gallery, golden-railed, 
Burnt like a fringe of fire. 

Likewise the deep-set windows, stained and traced, 

Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires 50 



284 ENGLISH POEMS 



From shadowed grots of arches interlaced, 
And tipt with frost-like spires. 

Full of long-sounding corridors it was, 

That over-vaulted grateful gloom, 
Thro' which the livelong day my soul did pass, 55 

Well-pleased, from room to room. 

Full of great rooms and small the palace stood. 

All various, each a perfect whole 
From living Nature, fit for every mood 

And change of my still soul. 60 

For some were hung with arras green and blue. 

Showing a gaudy summer-morn, 
Where with puffed cheek the belted hunter blew 
His wreathed bugle-horn. 

One seemed all dark and red — a tract of sand, 65 

And some one pacing there alone. 
Who paced forever in a glimmering land. 
Lit with a low large moon. 

One showed an iron coast and angry waves. 

You seemed to hear them climb and fall 70 

And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, 
Beneath the windy wall. 

And one, a full-fed river winding slow 

By herds upon an endless plain. 
The ragged rims of thunder brooding low, 75 

With shadow-streaks of rain. 

And one, the reapers at their sultry toil : 

In front they bound the sheaves ; behind 
Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil. 

And hoary to the wind. 80 

And one, a foreground black with stones and slags; 

Beyond, a line of heights ; and higher, 
All barred with long white cloud, the scornful crags; 
And highest, snow and fire. 



ALFRED TENNYSON 285 

And one, an English home — gray twilight poured 85 

On dewy pastures, dewy trees, 
Softer than sleep; all things in order stored, 
A haunt of ancient Peace. 

Nor these alone, but every landscape fair. 

As fit for every mood of mind, 90 

Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there, 
Not less than truth, designed. 

Or the Maid-Mother by a crucifix. 

In tracts of pasture sunny-warm. 
Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx 95 

Sat smiling, babe in arm. 

Or in a clear-walled city on the sea, 
Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair 
Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily; 

An angel looked at her. 100 

Or, thronging all one porch of Paradise, 

A group of Houris bowed to see 
The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes 
That said, "We wait for thee." 

Or mythic Uther's deeply-wounded son 105 

In some fair space of sloping greens 
Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon, 

And watched by weeping queens. 

Or, hollowing one hand against his ear, 

To list a foot-fall, ere he saw no 

The wood-nymph, stayed the Ausonian king to hear 
Of wisdom and of law. 

Or over hills with peaky tops engrailed. 

And many a tract of palm and rice, 
The throne of Indian Cama slowly sailed 115 

A summer fanned with spice. 



286 ENGLISH POEMS 



Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasped, 
From ofif her shoulder backward borne; 
From one hand drooped a crocus ; one hand grasped 

The mild bull's golden horn. 120 

Or else flushed Ganymede, his rosy thigh 

Half-buried in the eagle's down. 
Sole as a flying star shot through the sky 
Above the pillared town. 

Nor these alone; but every legend fair 125 

Which the supreme Caucasian mind 
Carved out of Nature for itself, was there, 

Not less than life, designed. 
********** 
********** 

Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung. 

Moved of themselves, with silver sound ; 130 

And with choice paintings of wise men I hung 
The royal dais round. 

For there was Milton like a seraph strong. 
Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild; 
And there the world-worn Dante grasped his song, 135 
And somewhat grimly smiled. 

And there the Ionian father of the rest; 

A million wrinkles carved his skin ; 
A hundred winters snowed upon his breast, 

From cheek and throat and chin. 140 

Above, the fair hall-ceiling, stately-set. 

Many an arch high up did lift, 

And angels rising and descending met 

With interchange of gift. 

Below was all mosaic choicely planned 145 

With cycles of the human tale 
Of this wide world, the times of every land 
So wrought they will not fail. 



ALFRED TENNYSON 287 

The people here, a beast of burden slow, 

Toiled onward, pricked with goads and stings; 150 

Here played, a tiger, rolling to and fro 
The heads and crowns of kings; 

/ 

Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind 

All force in bonds that might endure; 
And here, once more, like some sick man declined, 155 

And trusted any cure. 

But over these she trod ; and those great bells 

Began to chime. She took her throne; 
She sat betwixt the shining oriels, 

To sing her songs alone. 160 

And through the topmost oriels' coloured flame 

Two godlike faces gazed below : 
Plato the wise, and large-browed Verulam, 
The first of those who know. 

And all those names that in their motion were 165 

Full-welling fountain-heads of change. 
Betwixt the slender shafts were blazoned fair 
In diverse raiment strange; 

Through which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue, 

Flushed in her temples and her eyes, 170 

And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, drew 
Rivers of melodies. 

No nightingale delighteth to prolong 

Her low preamble all alone, 
More than my soul to hear her echoed song 175 

Throb through the ribbed stone; 

Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth, 

Joying to feel herself alive, 
Lord over Nature, lord of the visible earth, 

Lord of the senses five; 180 



288 ENGLISH POEMS 



Communing with herself: "All these are mine; 

And let the world have peace or wars, 
'T is one to me." She — when young night divine 
Crowned dying day with stars, 

Making sweet close of his delicious toils — 185 

Lit light in wreaths and anadems. 
And pure quintessences of precious oils 
In hollowed moons of gems, 

To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried: 

"I marvel if my still delight 190 

In this great house so royal-rich and wide 
Be flattered to the height. 

"O all things fair to sate my various eyes ! 

shapes and hues that please me well! 

silent faces of the Great and Wise, ipS 

My gods, with whom I dwell ! 

"O godlike isolation which art mine, 

1 can but count thee perfect gain, 

What time I watch the darknening droves of swine 

That range on yonder plain. 200 

"In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin, 

They graze and wallow, breed and sleep; 
And oft some brainless devil enters in, 
And drives them to the deep." 

Then of the moral instinct would she prate 205 

And of the rising from the dead, 
As hers by right of full-accomplished Fate; 
And at the last she said : 

"I take possession of man's mind and deed. 

I care not what the sects may brawl. 210 

1 sit as God holding no form of creed, 

But contemplating all." 

********* 
********* 



ALFRED TENNYSON 289 

Full oft the riddle of the painful earth 

Flashed thro' her as she sat alone, 
Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth, 215 

And intellectual throne. 

And so she throve and prospered; so three years 

She prospered : on the fourth she fell. 
Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears. 

Struck thro' with pangs of hell. ^ 220 

Lest she should fail and perish utterly, 

God, before whom ever lie bare 
The abysmal deeps of Personality, 

Plagued her with sore despair. 

When she would think, where'er she turned her sight 225 

The airy hand confusion wrought, 
Wrote, "Mene, mene," and divided quite 
The kingdom of her thought. 

Deep dread and loathing of her solitude 

Fell on her, from which mood was born 230 

Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood, 
Laughter at her self-scorn. 

"What ! is not this my place of strength," she said, 

"My spacious mansion built for me. 
Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid 235 

Since my first memory?" 

But in dark corners of her palace stood 

Uncertain shapes; and unawares 
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood. 

And horrible nightmares, 240 

And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame. 

And, with dim fretted foreheads all. 
On corpses three-months-old at noon she came 
That stood against the wall. 



290 ENGLISH POEMS 



A spot of dull stagnation, without light 245 

Or power of movement, seemed my soul, 
'Mid onward-sloping motions infinite 
Making for one sure goal: 

A still salt pool, locked in with bars of sand, 

Left on the shore; that hears all night 250 

The plunging seas draw backward from the land 
Their moon-led waters white : 

A star that with the choral starry dance 

Joined not, but stood, and standing saw 
The hollow orb of moving Circumstance 255 

Rolled round by one fixed law. 

Back on herself her serpent pride had curled. 

"No voice," she shrieked in that lone hall, 
"No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world: 

One deep, deep silence all !" 260 

She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod, 

Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame. 
Lay there exiled from eternal God, 
Lost to her place and name. 

And death and life she hated equally; 265 

And nothing saw, for her despair, 
But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, 
No comfort anywhere; 

Remaining utterly confused with fears. 

And ever worse with growing time, 270 

And ever unrelieved by dismal tears. 
And all alone in crime. 

Shut up as in a crumbling tomb girt round 

With blackness as a solid wall. 
Far off she seemed to hear the dully sound 275 

Of human footsteps fall: 



ALFRED TENNYSON 291 

As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, 

In doubt and great perplexity, 
A little before moon-rise hears the low 

Moan of an unknown sea; 280 

And knows not if it be thunder, or a sound 
Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry 
Of great wild beasts ; then thinketh, "I have found 
A new land, but I die." 

She howled aloud : "I am on fire within ! 285 

There comes no murmur of reply ! 
What is it that will take my sin, 
And save me lest I die?" 

So when four years were wholly finished, 

She threw her royal robes away. 290 

"Make me a cottage in the vale," she said, 
"Where I may mourn and pray. 

"Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are 

So lightly, beautifully built: 
Perchance I may return with others there 295 

When I have purged my guilt." 



1832 



THE LOTUS-EATERS 



"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land; 
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." 

In the afternoon they came unto a land 

In which it seemed always afternoon. 

All round the coast the languid air did swoon, 5 

Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. 

Full-faced above the valley stood the moon; 

And, like a downward smoke, the slender stream 

Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. 

A land of streams ! some, like a downward smoke, ID 

Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go; 
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke, 
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. 



292 ENGLISH POEMS 



They saw the gleaming river seaward flow 

From the inner land; far ofif, three mountain-tops, 15 

Three silent pinnacles of aged snow, 

Stood sunset-flushed; and, dewed with showery drops, 

Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. 

The charmed sunset lingered low adown 

In the red West ; thro' mountain clefts the dale 20 

Was seen far inland, and the yellow down 

Bordered with palm, and many a winding vale 

And meadow, set with slender galingale : 

A land where all things always seemed the same ! 

And round about the keel, with faces pale, 25 

Dark faces pale against that rosy flame. 

The mild-eyed melancholy Lotus-eaters came. 

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem. 

Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave 

To each; but whoso did receive of them 30 

And taste, to him the gushing of the wave 

Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave 

On alien shores ; and if his fellow spake, 

His voice was thin, as voices from the grave; 

And deep-asleep he seemed, yet all awake, 35 

And music in his ears his beating heart did make. 

They sat them down upon the yellow sand. 
Between the sun and moon upon the shore; 
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, 
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore 40 

Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar, 
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. 
Then some one said, "We will return no more"; 
And all at once they sang, "Our island home 
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam." 45 

1832. 

YOU ASK ME WHY, THO' ILL AT EASE 

You ask me why, tho' ill at ease, 

Within this region I subsist. 

Whose spirits falter in the mist. 
And languish for the purple seas. 



ALFRED TENNYSON 293 



It is the land that freemen till, 5 

That sober-suited Freedom chose; 

The land where, girt with friends or foes, 
A man may speak the thing he will ; 

A land of settled government, 

A land of just and old renown, iO 

Where freedom slowly broadens down 

From precedent to precedent; 

Where faction seldom gathers head, 

But, by degrees to fullness wrought, 

The strength of some dififusive thought 15 

Hath time and space to work and spread. 

Should banded unions persecute 

Opinion, and induce a time 

When single thought is civil crime. 
And individual freedom mute; 20 

Tho' power should make from land to land 

The name of Britain trebly great, 

Tho' every channel of the State 
Should fill and choke with golden sand, 

Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth, 25 

Wild wind ! I seek a warmer sky. 

And I will see before I die 
The palms and temples of the South. 
1833. 1842. 

ULYSSES 

It little profits that an idle king, 

By this still hearth, among these barren crags. 

Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole 

Unequal laws unto a savage race, 

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not m.e. 5 

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink 
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed 
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those 
That loved me, and alone ; on shore, and when 
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 10 



294 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Vext the dim sea. I am become a name; 

For, always roaming with a hungry heart, 

Much have I seen and known — cities of men 

And manners, climates, councils, governments. 

Myself not least, but honoured of them all; IS 

And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 

I am a part of all that I have met ; 

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 

Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades 20 

Forever and forever when I move. 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end. 

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use. 

As tho' to breathe were life ! Life piled on life 

Were all too little, and of one to me 25 

Little remains : but every hour is saved 

From that eternal silence — something more, 

A bringer of new things ; and vile it were 

For some three suns to store and hoard myself, 

And this gray spirit yearning in desire 30 

To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 

This is my son, mine own Telemachus, 
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle — 
Well-loved of me discerning to fulfil 35 

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild 
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees 
Subdue them to the useful and the good. 
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 
Of common duties, decent not to fail 4(? 

In offices of tenderness, and pay 
Meet adoration to my household gods, 
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. 

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail; 
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, 45 

Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with 

me — 
That ever with a frolic welcome took 
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 
Free hearts, free foreheads, — you and I are old; 
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil : 50 



ALFRED TENNYSON 295 

Death closes all; but something ere the end, 
Some work of noble note, may yet be done. 
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods. 
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks ; 
The long day wanes ; the slow moon climbs ; the deep 55 
Moans round with many voices. Come my friends, 
'T is not too late to seek a newer world. 
Push off, and, sitting well in order, smite 
The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds 
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 60 

Of all the western stars, until I die. 
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; 
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 
Tho' much is taken, much abides ; and tho' 65 

We are not now that strength which in old days 
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are — 
One equal temper of heroic hearts. 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 70 

About 1833. 1842, 

MORTE D'ARTHUR 

So all day long the noise of battle rolled 

Among the mountains by the winter sea ; 

Until King Arthur's table, man by man, 

Had fallen in Lyonesse about their lord. 

King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep, 5 

The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him. 

Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights. 

And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 

A broken chancel with a broken cross. 

That stood on a dark strait of barren land: to 

On one side lay the ocean, and on one 

Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
"The sequel of to-day unsolders all 

The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 15 

Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 
They sleep — the men I loved. I think that we 



296 ENGLISH POEMS 



Shall never more, at any future time, 

Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 

Walking about the gardens and the halls 20 

Of Camelot, as in the days that were. 

I perish by this people which I made, — 

Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 

To rule once more; — but let what will be, be, 

I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm 25 

That without help I cannot last till morn. 

Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 

Which was my pride : for thou rememberest how 

In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 

Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, 30 

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 

Holding the sword; and how I rowed across 

And took it, and have worn it, like a king; 

And wheresoever I am sung or told 

In after time, this also shall be known. 35 

But now delay not : take Excalibur, 

And fling him far into the middle mere; 

Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word." 

To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere : 
"It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, 40 

Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm. 
A little thing may harm a wounded man. 
Yet I thy best will all perform at full. 
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." 

So saying, from the ruined shrine he stept 45 

And in the moon athwart the place of tombs. 
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men. 
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down 
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, 50 

Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 
And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon. 
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt; 55 

For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long 



iS>* 



ALFRED TENNYSON 297 

That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, 

This way and that dividing the swift mind, 60 

In act to throw ; but at the last it seemed 

Better to leave Excalibur concealed 

There in the many-knotted waterflags. 

That whistled stiflf and dry about the marge. 

So strode he back slow to the wounded King. 65 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
"Hast thou performed my mission which I gave? 
What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
"I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 70 

And the wild water lapping on the crag." 

To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale : 
"Thou hast betrayed thy nature and thy name, 
Not rendering true answer, as beseemed 
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight; 75 

For surer sign had followed, either hand. 
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again. 
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 80 

I bade thee; watch, and lightly bring me word." 

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 
Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere. 
Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought ; 
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 85 

How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 
His palms together, and he cried aloud : 
"And if indeed I cast the brand away, 
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, 
Should thus be lost forever from the earth, 90 

Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. 
What good should follow this, if this were done? 
What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey. 
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 

Were it well to obey, then, if a king demand 95 

An act unprofitable, against himself? 
The King is sick, and knows not what he does. 
What record, or what relic of my lord 
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 



298 ENGLISH POEMS 



And rumours of a doubt? But were this kept, 100 

Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, 

Some one might show it at a joust of arms. 

Saying, 'King Arthur's sword, Excahbur, 

Wrought by the lonely Maiden of the Lake ; 

Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 105 

Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 

So might some old man speak in the aftertime 

To all the people, winning reverence. 

But now much honour and much fame were lost." 

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, no 

And hid Excalibur the second time, 
And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily: 
"What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?" 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 113 

"I heard the water lapping on the crag. 
And the long ripple washing in the reeds." 

To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath : 
"Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 

Unknightly, traitor-hearted ! Woe is me ! 120 

Authority forgets a dying king, 
Laid widowed of the power in his eye 
That bowed the will. I see thee what thou art, 
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights. 
In whom should meet the oiifices of all, 125 

Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt; 
Either from lust of gold, or, like a girl, 
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, 
And the third time may prosper, get thee hence; 130 

But if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 
I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran. 
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 
Among the bulrush-beds, and clutched the sword, 135 

And strongly wheeled and threw it. The great brand 
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon, 
And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch. 
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn. 
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 140 



ALFRED TENNYSON 299 

By night, with noises of the northern sea. 

So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur ; 

But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 

And caught him by the hilt, and brandished him 145 

Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 

And lightly went the other to the King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath : 
"Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard or seen?" 150 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
"Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, 
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, 
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men, 155 

So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him ; 
But when I looked again, behold an arm, 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
That caught him by the hilt, and brandished him 160 

Three times, and drew him under in the mere." 

And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: 
"My end draws nigh ; 't is time that I were gone. 
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, 
And bear me to the margin; yet I fear 165 

My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 

So saying, from the pavement he half rose, 
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm. 
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 170 

Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, 
And would have spoken, but he found not words; 
Then took with care, and, kneeling on one knee. 
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands. 
And, rising, bore him thro' the place of tombs. 175 

But, as he walked. King Arthur panted hard. 
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
When all the house is rnute. So sighed the King, 
Muttering and murmuring at his ear, "Quick, quick! 
I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 180 

But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, 



300 ENGLISH POEMS 



Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walked, 
Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry- 
Before. His own thought drove him, like a goad, 185 
Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves 
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
The bare black cliff clanged round him, as he based 
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels — 190 
And on a sudden, lo ! the level lake, 
And the long glories of the winter moon. 

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge. 
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern. 
Beneath them ; and, descending, they were ware 195 

That all the decks were dense with stately forms 
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream ; by these, 
Three queens with crowns of gold; and from them rose 
A cry that shivered to the tingling stars, 
And, as it were one voice, an agony 200 

Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills 
All night in a waste land, where no one comes. 
Or hath come, since the making of the world. 

Then murmured Arthur, "Place me in the barge"; 
And to the barge they came. There those three queens 205 
Put forth their hands, and took the king, and wept. 
But she, that rose the tallest of them all 
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap. 
And loosed the shattered casque, and chafed his hands, 
And called him by his name, complaining loud, 210 

And dropping bitter tears against his brow 
Striped with dark blood : for all his face was white 
And colourless, and like the withered moon 
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ; 
And all his greaves and cuisses dashed with drops 215 
Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls — 
That made his forehead like a rising sun 
High from the dais-throne — were parched with dust. 
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose. 
Mixed with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 220 
So like a shattered column lay the King; 
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 



ALFRED TENNYSON 301 

From spur to plume a star of tournament, 
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged 
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 225 

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere : 

"Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? 
For now I see the true old times are dead, 
When every morning brought a noble chance, 230 

Every chance brought out a noble knight. 
Such times have been not since the light that led 
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
But now the whole round table is dissolved. 
Which was an image of the mighty world; 235 

And I, the last, go forth companionless. 
And the days darken round me, and the years, 
Among new men, strange faces, other minds." ' 
And slowly answered Arthur from the barge : 

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 240 

And God fulfils Himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? 
I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
May He within Himself make pure ! But thou, 245 

H thou shouldst never see my face again. 
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 250 

That nourish a blind life within the brain. 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 255 

But now farewell. I am going a long way 
With these thou seest — if indeed I go 
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) — 
To the island valley of Avilion, 

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 260 

Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies 
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard-lawns 
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea; 



302 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 

So said he; and the barge with oar and sail 265 

Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death. 
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
With swarthy webs. £,ong stood Sir Bedivere, 
Revolving many memories, till the hull 270 

Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn, 
And on the mere the wailing died away. 
1834. 1842. 



LOCKSLEY HALL 

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn ; 
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn. 

'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call. 
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; 

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, 5 
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. 

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, 
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the west. 

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, 
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. 10 

Here about the beach I wandered, nourishing a youth sublime 
With the fairy tales of science and the long result of Time; 

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; 
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed; 

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see, 15 
Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be. 

In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast ; 
In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; 

In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove; 
In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of 
love. 20 



ALFRED TENNYSON 303 

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so 

young, 
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. 

And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me; 
Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee." 

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light, 25 
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night. 

And she turned — her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs. 
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes, — 

Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me 

wrong" ; 
Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin ?" weeping, "I have loved thee 

long." 30 

Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing 

hands ; 
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. 

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with 

might ; 
Smote the Chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of 

sight. 

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, 35 
And her whisper thronged my pulses with the fullness of the 
spring. 

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, 
And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips. 

O my cousin, shallow-hearted ! O my Amy, mine no more ! 

O the dreary, dreary moorland ! O the barren, barren shore ! 40 

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung, 
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue! 

Is it well to wish thee happy? — having known me, to decline 
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine ! 

Yet it shall be; thou shalt lower to his level, day by day, 45 

What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay. 



304 ENGLISH POEMS 



As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a clown, 
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee 
down. 

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel 

force, 
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. 50 

What is this ? his eyes are heavy : think not they are glazed with 

wine. 
Go to him — it is thy duty ; kiss him ; take his hand in thine. 

It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought: 
Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter 
thought. 

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand — 55 

Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my 
hand! 

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace, 
Rolled in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace. 

Cursed be the social want's that sin against the strength of youth ! 
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth ! 60 

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule! 
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straitened forehead of the fool ! 

Well — 't is well that I should bluster ! — Hadst thou less unworthy 

proved — 
Would to God — for I had loved thee more than ever wife was 

loved. 

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit ? 65 
I will pluck it from thy bosom, tho' my heart be at the root. — 

Never ! tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should 

come 
As the many-wintered crow that leads the clanging rookery home. 

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind? 

Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind? 70 

I remember one that perished ; sweetly did she speak and move : 
Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love. 



ALFRED TENNYSON 



305 



Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore? 
No — she never loved me truly : love is love forevermore. 

Comfort? comfort scorned of devils! this is truth the poet sings, 75 
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. 

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to 

proof. 
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof. 

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall. 
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and 

fall. 80 

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep. 
To thy widowed marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt 
weep. 

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whispered by the phantom 

years. 
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears ; 

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. 83 
Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy rest again. 

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry. 
'T is a purer life than thine ; a lip to drain thy trouble dry. 

Baby lips will laugh me down : my latest rival brings thee rest. 
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast. 90 

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due. 
Half is thine and half is his : it will be worthy of the two. 

O, I see thee, old and formal, fitted to thy petty part. 

With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart : 

"They were dangerous guides, the feelings — she herself was not 

exempt — 95 

Truly, she herself had suffered." — Perish in thy self-contempt ! 

Overlive it — lower yet, be happy! wherefore should I care? 
I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair. 

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like 

these? 
Every door is barred with gold, and opens but to golden keys. 100 



3o6 ENGLISH POEMS 



Every gate is thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow. 
I have but an angry fancy : what is that which I should do ? 

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, 
When the ranks are rolled in vapour, and the winds are laid with 
sound. 

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels, 105 
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels. 

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page. 
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother- Age! 

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife. 
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life; no 

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would 

yield. 
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field, 

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn, 
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn; 

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, 115 
Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men ; 

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new. 
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they 
shall do ! 

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see. 

Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be; 120 

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales ; 

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly 

dew 
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; 

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing 
warm, 125 

With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder- 
storm ; 



ALFRED TENNYSON 307 

Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were 

furled 
In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World. 

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in 

awe. 
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. 130 

So I triumphed ere my passion, sweeping thro' me, left me dry. 
Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced 
eye; 

Eye to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint: 
Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to 
point ; 

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, 135 

Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire. 

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the 
suns. _ 

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, 
Tho' the deep heart of existence beat forever like a boy's? 140 

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore; 
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more. 

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden 

breast. 
Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. 

Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn, 145 
They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn. 

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a mouldered string? 
I am ashamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing. 

Weakness to be wroth with weakness ! woman's pleasure, woman's 

pain — 
Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower 

brain : 150 



3o8 ENGLISH POEMS 



Woman is the lesser man; and all thy passions, matched with 

mine, 
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine. 

Here at least, where Nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some 

retreat 
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life' began to beat; 

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father, evil-starred; — 155 
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward. 

Or to burst all links of habit — there to wander far away. 
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day : 

Larger constellations burning, mellow morns and happy skies. 
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster knots of Paradise. 160 

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag; 
Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from 
the crag; 

Droops the heavy-blossomed bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree — 
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea. 

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of 

mind, 165 

In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake 
mankind. 

There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have scope and 

breathing space ; 
I will. take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. 

Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive, and they shall run, 
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun; 170 

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the 

brooks. 
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books 

Fool, again the dream, the fancy ! but I know my words are wild. 
But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child. 

I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, 175 
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains • 



ALFRED TENNYSON 309 

Mated with a squalid savage — what to me were sun or cHme? 
I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time — 

I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, 
Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in 
Ajalon! 180 

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us 

range ! 
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of 

change. 

Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day : 
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 

Mother-Age (for mine I knew not), help me as when life begun : 185 
Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the 
sun. 

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. 
Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet. 

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall ! 
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree 
fall. lyo 

Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt. 
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. 

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; 
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. 

1842. 



BREAK, BREAK, BREAK 

Break, break, break. 

On thy cold gray stones, O sea! 
And I would that my tongue could utter 

The thoughts that arise in me. 

O well for the fisherman's boy 

That he shouts with his sister at play! 
O well for the sailor lad 

That he sings in his boat on the bay! 



3IO ENGLISH POEMS 



And the stately ships go on 

To their haven under the hill; ' lo 

But O for the touch of a vanished hand, 

And the sound of a voice that is still ! 

Break, break, break, 

At the foot of thy crags, O sea! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 15 

Will never come back to me. 



1842. 



FROM 

IN MEMORIAM A. H. H. 



XXXIII 

O thou that after toil and storm 

Mayst seem to have reached a purer air, 
Whose faith has centre everywhere, 

Nor cares to fix itself to form. 

Leave thou thy sister, when she prays, S 

Her early heaven, her happy views; 

Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse 
A life that leads melodious days. 

Her faith thro' form is pure as thine, 

Her hands are quicker unto good: 10 

Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood 
To which she links a truth divine ! 

See thou, that countest reason ripe 

In holding by the law within. 

Thou fail not in a world of sin, 15 

And ev'n for want of such a type. 

xxxiv 
My own dim life should teach me this, 

That life shall live forevermore. 

Else earth is darkness at the core. 
And dust and ashes all that is ; 

This round of green, this orb of flame, 5 

Fantastic beauty, such as lurks 

In some wild poet when he works 
Without a conscience or an aim. 



ALFRED TENNYSON 311 

What then were God to such as I? 

'T were hardly worth my while to choose 10 

Of things all mortal, or to use 
A little patience ere I die; 

'T were best at once to sink to peace, 

Like birds the charming serpent draws, 

To drop head- foremost in the jaws 15 

Of vacant darkness and to cease. 



That each, who seems a separate whole, 
Should move his rounds, and, fusing all 
The skirts of self again, should fall 

Remerging in the general Soul, 

Is faith as vague as all unsweet : 5 

Eternal form shall still divide 
The eternal soul from all beside. 
And I shall know him when we meet; 

And we shall sit at endless feast. 

Enjoying each the other's good. 10 

What vaster dream can hit the mood 
Of Love on earth? He seeks at least 

Upon the last and sharpest height, 
Before the spirits fade away. 

Some landing-place, to clasp and say, 13 

"Farewell! We lose ourselves in light." 



Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill. 
To pangs of nature, sins of will. 

Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; 

That nothing walks with aimless feet ; 
That not one life shall be destroyed. 
Or cast as rubbish to the void. 

When God hath made the pile complete; 



312 



ENGLISH POEMS 



That not a worm is cloven in vain ; 

That not a moth with vain desire lo 

Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire, 
Or but subserves another's gain. 

Behold, we know not anything; 

I can but trust that good shall fall 

At last — far off — at last, to all, 15 

And every winter change to spring. 

So runs my dream : but what am I ? 

An infant crying in the night ; 

An infant crying for the light; 
And with no language but a cry. 20 



LV 

The wish that of the living whole 

No life may fail beyond the grave. 

Derives it not from what we have 
The likest God within the soul? 

Are God and Nature, then, at strife, 5 

That Nature lends such evil dreams? 

So careful of the type she seems. 
So careless of the single life, 

That I, considering everywhere 

Her secret meaning in her deeds, 10 

And finding that of fifty seeds 
She often brings but one to bear, 

I falter where I firmly trod. 

And, falling with my weight of cares 

Upon the great world's altar-stairs 15 

That slope thro' darkness up to God, 

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope. 

And gather dust and chaff, and call 

To what I feel is Lord of all. 
And faintly trust the larger hope. 20 



ALFRED TENNYSON 313 



LVI 

"So careful of the type?" but no. 

From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
She cries, "A thousand types are gone : 
I care for nothing, all shall go. 

"Thou makest thine appeal to me: 5 

I bring to hfe, I bring to death; 
The spirit does but mean the breath: 
I know no more." And he, shall he, 

Man, her last work, who seemed so fair, 

Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 10 

Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies, 
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, 

Who trusted God was love indeed 

And love Creation's final law — 

Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw I5 

With ravine, shrieked against his creed,— 

Who loved, who suffered countless ills, 

Who battled for the True, the Just,— 

Be blown about the desert dust. 
Or sealed within the iron hills? 20 

No more? A monster, then, a dream, 

A discord. Dragons of the prime. 

That tare each other in their slime. 
Were mellow music matched with him. 

O life as futile, then, as frail ! 25 

O for thy voice to soothe and bless ! 

What hope of answer or redress? 
Behind the veil, behind the veil. 



You say, but with no touch of scorn. 

Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes 
Are tender over drowning flies. 

You tell me, doubt is Devil-born. 



314 



ENGLISH POEMS 



I know not : one indeed I knew 5 

In many a subtle question versed, 

Who touched a jarring lyre at first, 
But ever strove to make it true : 

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, 

At last he beat his music out. 10 

There lives more faith in honest doubt. 

Believe me, than in half the creeds. 

He fought his doubts and gathered strength ; 

He would not make his judgment blind; 

He faced the spectres of the mind 15 

And laid them : thus he came at length 

To find a stronger faith his own; 

And Power was with him in the night. 
Which makes the darkness and the light, 

And dwells not in the light alone, 20 

But in the darkness and the cloud. 

As over Sinai's peaks of old. 

While Israel made their gods of gold, 
Altho' the trumpet blew so loud. 

cxiv 

Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail 

Against her beauty ? May she mix 

With men and prosper ! Who shall fix 
Her pillars ? Let her work prevail. 

But on her forehead sits a fire : 5 

She sets her forward countenance 

And leaps into the future chance. 
Submitting all things to desire. 

Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain — 

She cannot fight the fear of death. 10 

What is she, cut from love and faith. 
But some wild Pallas from the brain 

Of demons? fiery-hot to burst 

All barriers in her onward race 

For power. Let her know her place; 15 

She is the second, not the first. 



ALFRED TENNYSON 315 

A higher hand must make her mild, 

If all be not in vain, and guide 

Her footsteps, moving side by side 
With Wisdom, like the younger child; 20 

For she is earthly of the mind, 

But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. 

O, friend, who camest to thy goal 
So early, leaving me behind, 

I would the great world grew like thee, 25 

Who grewest not alone in power 

And knowledge, but by year and hour 
In reverence and in charity. 

CXVIII 

Contemplate all this work of Time, 

The giant labouring in his youth; 

Nor dream of human love and truth 
As dying Nature's earth and lime; 

But trust that those we call the dead 5 

Are breathers of an ampler day 

For ever nobler ends. They say 
The solid earth whereon we tread 

In tracts of fluent heat began, 

And grew to seeming-random forms, 10 

The seeming prey of cyclic storms. 
Till at the last arose the man; 

Who throve and branched from clime to clime, 

The herald of a higher race, 

And of himself in higher place, 15 

If so he type this work of Time 

Within himself, from more to more ; 
Or, crowned with attributes of woe 
Like glories, move his course, and show 

That life is not as idle ore, 20 

But iron dug from central gloom. 

And heated hot with burning fears. 

And dipt in baths of hissing tears. 
And battered with the shocks of doom 



3i6 ENGLISH POEMS 



To shape and use. Arise, and fly 25 

The reeling faun, the sensual feast; 

Move upward, working out the beast, 
And let the ape and tiger die. 

cxxiv 
That which we dare invoke to bless ; 

Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt; 

He, They, One, All ; within, without ; 
The Power in darkness Whom we guess; 

I found Him not in world or sun, 5 

Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye ; 

Nor through the questions men may try, 
The petty cobwebs we have spun. 

If e'er, when faith had fall'n asleep, 

I heard a voice, "Believe no more," 10 

And heard an ever-breaking shore 
That tumbled in the Godless deep; 

A warmth within the breast would melt 

The freezing reason's colder part, 

And like a man in wrath the heart IS 

Stood up and answered, "I have felt." 

No, like a child in doubt and fear : 

But that blind clamour made me wise ; 
Then was I as a child that cries. 

But, crying, knows his father near; 20 

And what I am beheld again 

What is and no man understands; 

And out of darkness came the hands 
That reach thro' Nature, moulding men. 
1833-49- 1850. 

TEARS, IDLE TEARS 

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean. 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
In looking on the happy autumn-fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no more. . 5 



ALFRED TENNYSON 317 

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail 
That brings our friends up from the underworld, 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 10 

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 15 

Dear as remembered kisses after death, 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love. 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 
O death in life, the days that are no more. 20 

1847. 



SWEET AND LOW 

Sweet and low, sweet and low, 

Wind of the western sea. 
Low, low, breathe and blow. 

Wind of the western sea ! 
Over the rolling waters go, 5 

Come from the dying moon, and blow. 

Blow him again to me; 
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. 

Father will come to thee soon; 10 

Rest, rest, on mother's breast. 

Father will come to thee soon; 
Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
Silver sails all out of the west 

Under the silver moon: 15 

Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. 

1850. 



3i8 ENGLISH POEMS 



THE SPLENDOUR FALLS ON CASTLE WALLS 

The splendour falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story; 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying; 5 

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, 

And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar. 

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 10 

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying; 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O love, they die in yon rich sky, 

They faint on hill or field or river : 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 15 

And grow forever and forever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying; 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. 

1850. 

THE BROOK 

I come from haunts of coot and hern, 

I make a sudden sally, 
And sparkle out among the fern. 

To bicker down a valley. 

By thirty hills I hurry down, S 

Or slip between the ridges, 
By twenty thorps, a little town. 

And half a hundred bridges. 

Till last by Philip's farm I flow 

To join the brimming river; 10 

For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on forever. 

I chatter over stony ways. 

In little sharps and trebles, 
I bubble into eddying bays, 15 

I babble on the pebbles. 



ALFRED TENNYSON 319 

With many a curve my banks I fret 

By many a field and fallow, 
And many a fairy foreland set 

With willow-weed and mallow. 20 

I chatter, chatter, as I flow 

To join the brimming river; 
For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on forever. 

I wind about, and in and out, 25 

With here a blossom sailing. 
And here and there a lusty trout. 

And here and there a grayling. 

And here and there a foamy flake 

Upon me, as I travel 30 

With many a silvery waterbreak 

Above the golden gravel. 

And draw them all along, and flow 

To join the brimming river; 
For men may come and men may go, 35 

But I go on forever. 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots, 

I slide by hazel covers, 
I move the sweet forget-me-nots 

That grow for happy lovers. 40 

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance. 

Among my skimming swallows, 
I make the netted sunbeam dance 

Against my sandy shallows. 

I murmur under moon and stars 45 

In brambly wildernesses, 
I linger by my shingly bars, 

I l®iter round my cresses. 

And out again I curve and flow 

To join the brimming river; 50 

For men may come and men may go, 

But I go on forever. 

1855. 



320 ENGLISH POEMS 



NORTHERN FARMER 

OLD STYLE 

Wheer 'asta bean saw long and mea liggin' 'ere aloan? 
Noorse? thourt nowt o' a noorse: whoy, Doctor's abean an' agoan; 
Says that I moant 'a naw moor aale : but I beant a fool : 
Git ma my aale, fur I beant a-gawin' to break my rule. 

Doctors, they knaws nowt, fur a says what 's nawways true : 5 

Naw soort o' koind o' use to saay the things that a do. 
I 've 'ed my point o' aale ivry noight sin' I bean 'ere, 
An' I 've 'ed my quart ivry market-noight for foorty year. 

Parson 's a bean loikewoise, an' a sittin' 'ere o' my bed. 
"The amoighty 's a taakin o' you to 'issen, my friend," a said, 10 
An' a towd ma my sins, an 's toithe were due, an' I gied it in bond ; ' 
I done moy duty boy 'um, as I 'a done boy the lond. 

Larn'd a ma' bea. I reckons I 'annot sa mooch to larn. 

But a cast oop, thot a did, 'bout Bessy Harris's barne. 

Thaw a knaws I hallus voated wi' Squoire an' choorch an' staate, 15 

An' i' the woost o' toimes I wur niver again the raate. 

An' I hallus coomed to 's chooch afoor moy Sally war dead, 
An' 'eard 'um a bummin' awaay loike a buzzard-clock ower my 'ead. 
An' I niver knaw'd whot a meaned but I thowt a 'ad summut to 

saay. 
An' I thowt a said whot a owt to 'a said an' I coomed awaay. 20 

Bessy Harris's barne ! tha knaws she laaid it to mea. 
Howt a bean, mayhap, for she wur a bad un, shea. 
'Siver, I kep 'um, I kep 'um, my lass, tha mun understond; 
I done moy duty boy 'um, as I 'a done boy the lond. 

But Parson a cooms an' a goas, an' a says it easy an' freea, 25 
"The amoighty 's a taakin o' you to 'issen, my friend," says 'ea. 
I weant saay men be loiars, thaw summun said it in 'aaste : 
But 'e reads wonn sarmin a weeak, an' I 'a stubbed Thurnaby 
waaste. 

D'ya moind the waaste, my lass? naw, naw, tha was not born 

then; 
Theer wur a boggle in it, I often 'eard 'um mysen ; 30 



ALFRED TENNYSON 32 1 

Moast loike a butter-bump, fur I 'eard 'um about an' about, 

But I stubbed 'um oop wi' the lot, an' raaved an' rembled 'um out. 

Reaper's it wur; fo' they fun 'um theer a-laaid of 'is faace 
Down i' the woild 'enemies afoor I coomed to the plaace. 
Noaks or Thimbleby — toaner 'ed shot 'um as dead as a naail. 35 
Noaks wur 'anged for it oop at 'soize — but git ma my aale. 

Dubbut loook at the waaste : theer warn't not feead for a cow ; 
Nowt at all but bracken an' fuzz, an' loook at it now — 
Warnt worth nowt a haacre, an' now theer 's lots o' feead, 
Fourscoor yows upon it an' some on it down i' seead. 40 

Nobbut a bit on it 's left, an' I mean to 'a stubbed it at fall, 
Done it ta-year I meaned, an' runned plow thrufif it an' all. 
If godamoighty an' Parson 'ud nobbut let ma aloan, 
Mea, wi' haate hoonderd haacre o' Squoire's, an' lond o' my oan. 

Do godamoighty knaw what a's doing a-taakin' o' mea? 45 

I beant wonn as saws 'ere a bean an' yonder a pea; 

An' Squoire 'uU be sa mad an' all — a' dear a' dear ! 

And I 'a managed for Squoire coom Michaelmas thutty year. 

A mowt 'a taaen owd Joanes, as 'ant nor a 'aapoth 0' sense, 

Or a mowt 'a taaen young Robins — a niver mended a fence : 50 

But godamoighty a moost taake mea an' taake ma now 

Wi' aaf the cows to cauve an' Thurnaby hoalms to plow ! 

Loook 'ow quoloty smoiles when they seeas ma a passin' boy, 
Says to thessen naw doubt "what a man a bea sewer-loy !" 
Fur they knaws what I bean to Squoire sin fust a coomed to 

the 'All ; 55 

I done moy duty by Squoire an' I done moy duty boy hall. 

Squoire's i' Lunnon, an' summun I reckons 'ull 'a to wroite, 
For whoa 's to howd the lond ater mea thot muddles ma quoit ; 
Sartin-sewer I bea, thot a weant niver give it to Joanes, 
Naw, nor a moant to Robins — a niver rembles the stoans. 60 

But summun 'ull come ater mea mayhap wi' 'is kittle o' steam 
Huzzin' an' maazin' the blessed fealds wi' the Divil's oan team. 
Sin' I mun doy I mun doy, thaw loife they says is sweet. 
But sin' I mun doy I mun doy, for I couldn abear to see it. 



322 



ENGLISH POEMS 



What atta stannin' theer fur, an' doesn bring ma the aale ? 65 

Doctor 's a 'toattler, lass, an a 's hallus i' the owd taale ; 
I weant break rules fur Doctor, a knaws naw moor nor a floy ; 
Git ma my aale I tell tha, an' if I mun doy I mun doy. 

1861. 1864. 



MILTON 

O mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies, 
O skilled to sing of Time or Eternity, 
God-gifted organ-voice of England, 
Milton, a name to resound for ages; 
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, 5 

Starred from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries, 
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean 

Rings to the roar of an angel onset, — 
Me rather all that bowery loneliness. 
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, 10 

And bloom profuse and cedar arches 
Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, 
Where some refulgent sunset of India 
Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, 

And crimson-hued the stately palm-woods 15 

Whisper in odorous heights of even. 

1863. ^^2- 

WAGES 

Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song. 

Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea; 

Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong- 
Nay, but she aimed not at glory, no lover of glory she : 

Give her the glory of going on, and still to be. 5 

The wages of sin is death : if the wages of Virtue be dust, 
Would she have heart to endure for the life of the 
worm and the fly? 
She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, 
To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky: 
Give her the wages of going on, and not to die. 10 

1868. 



ALFRED TENNYSON 323 

RIZPAH 

17— 

Wailing, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and sea — 
And Willy's voice in the wind, "O mother, come out to me." 
Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot go ? 
For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at 
the snow. 

We should be seen, my dear ; they would spy us out o£ the town. 5 
The loud black nights for us, and the storm rushing over the 

down, 
When I cannot see my own hand, but am led by the creak of the 

chain. 
And grovel and grope for my son till I find myself drenched with 

the rain. 

Anything fallen again? nay — what was there left to fall? 
I have taken them home, I have numbered the bones, I have hid- 
den them all. 10 
What am I saying? and what are you? do you come as a spy? 
Falls? what falls? who knows? As the tree falls so must it lie. 

Who let her in? how long has she been? you — what have you 

heard? 
Why did you sit so quiet? you never have spoken a word. 
O — to pray with me — yes — a lady — none of their spies — 15 

But the night has crept into my heart, and begun to darken my 

eyes. 

Ah — you, that have lived so soft, what should you know of the 

night. 
The blast and the burning shame and the bitter frost and the 

fright ? 
I have done it, while you were asleep — you were only made for 

the day. 
I have gathered my baby together — and now you may go your 

way. 20 

Nay — for it 's kind of you, madam, to sit by an old dying wife. 
But say nothing hard of my boy, I have only an hour of life. 
I kissed my boy in the prison, before he went out to die. 
"They dared me to do it," he said, and he never has told me a lie. 



324 



ENGLISH POEMS 



I whipt him for robbing an orchard once when he was but a 

child — 25 

"The farmer dared me to do it," he said ; he was always so wild — 
And idle — and couldn't be idle — my Willy — he never could rest. 
The King should have made him a soldier, he would have been 
one of his best. 

But he lived with a lot of wild mates, and they never would let 

him be good; 
They swore that he dare not rob the mail, and he swore that he 

would : 30 

And he took no life, but he took one purse, and when all was done 
He flung it among his fellows — "I '11 none of it," said my son. 

I came into court to the judge and the lawyers. I told them my 

tale, 
God's own truth — but they killed him, they killed him for robbing 

the mail. 
They hanged him in chains for a show — we had always borne a 

good name — 35 

To be hanged for a thief — and then put away — isn't that enough 

shame ? 
Dust to dust — low down — let us hide ! but they set him so high 
That all the ships of the world could stare at him, passing by. 
God 'ill pardon the hell-black raven and horrible fowls of the air. 
But not the black heart of the lawyer who killed him and hanged 

him there. 40 

And the jailer forced me away. I had bid him my last goodbye; 
They had fastened the door of his cell. "O mother!" I heard 

him cry. 
I couldn't get back, tho' I tried ; he had something further to say, 
And now I never shall know it. The jailer forced me away. 

Then, since I couldn't but hear that cry of my boy that was 

dead, 45 

They seized me and shut me up; they fastened me down on my 

bed. 
"Mother, O mother !" he called in the dark to me year after 

year — 
They beat me for that, they beat me — you know that I couldn't 

but hear. 



ALFRED TENNYSON 325 

And then at the last they found I had grown so stupid and still 
They let me abroad again — but the creatures had worked their 
will. 50 

Flesh of my flesh was gone, but bone of my bone was left — 

I stole them all from the lawyers — and you, will you call it a 

theft?— 
My baby, the bones that had sucked me, the bones that had 

laughed and had cried — 
Theirs ? O no ! they are mine — not theirs — they had moved in 

my side. 

Do you think I was scared by the bones? I kissed 'em, I buried 
'em all — 55 

I can't dig deep, I am old — in the night by the churchyard wall. 

My Willy 'ill rise up whole when the trumpet of judgment 'ill 
sound. 

But I charge you never 10 say that I laid him in holy ground: 

They would scratch him up — they would hang him again on the 

cursed tree. 
Sin? O yes — we are sinners, I know — let all that be, 60 

And read me a Bible verse of the Lord's good will toward men — 
"Full of compassion and mercy, the Lord" — let me hear it again ; 
"Full of compassion and mercy — long-suffering." Yes, O yes ! 
For the lawyer is born but to murder — the Saviour lives but to 

bless. 
He '11 never put on the black cap except for the worst of the 

worst, 65 

And the first may be last — I have heard it in church — and the 

last may be first. 
Suffering — O long-suffering — yes, as the Lord must know. 
Year after year in the mist and the wind and the shower and the 

snow. 

Heard, have you? what? they have told you he never repented 

his sin. 
How do they know it? are they his mother? are you of his kin? 70 
Heard ! have you ever heard, when the storm on the downs began. 
The wind that 'ill wail like a child and the sea that 'ill moan like 



326 ENGLISH POEMS 



Election, Election and Reprobation — it 's all very well. 

But I go to-night to my boy, and I shall not find him in hell ; 

For I cared so much for my boy that the Lord has looked into 

my care, 75 

And He means me, I 'm sure, to be happy with Willy, I know not 

where. 

And if he be lost — but to save my soul, that is all your desire: 
Do you think that I care for my soul if my boy be gone to the 

fire? 
I have been with God in the dark — go, go, you may leave me 

alone — 
You never have borne a child — you are just as hard as a stone. 80 

Madam, I beg your pardon ! I think that you mean to be kind. 
But I cannot hear what you say for my Willy's voice in the wind — 
The snow and the sky so bright — he used but to call in the dark, 
And he calls to me now from the church and not from the gibbet — 

for hark! 
Nay — you can hear it yourself — it is coming — shaking the walls — 85 
Willy — the moon 's in a cloud Good-night. I am going. He 

calls. 

1880. 



TO VIRGIL 

Roman Virgil, thou that singest 

Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire, 
Ilion falling, Rome arising, 

wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre; 

Landscape-lover, lord of language 5 

more than he that sang the Works and Days, 

All the chosen coin of fancy 

flashing out from many a golden phrase; 

Thou that singest wheat and woodland, 

tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd, 10 

All the charm of all the Muses 

often flowering in a lonely word; 



ALFRED TENNYSON 327 

Poet of the happy Tityrus 

piping underneath his beechen bowers ; 
Poet of the poet-satyr 15 

whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers; 

Chanter of the PolHo, glorying 

in the blissful years again to be, 
Summers of the snakeless meadow, 

unlaborious earth and oarless sea; 20 

Thou that seest Universal 

Nature moved by Universal Mind; 
Thou majestic in thy sadness 

at the doubtful doom of human kind; 

Light among the vanished ages ; 25 

star that gildest yet this phantom shore; 

Golden branch amid the shadows, 

kings and realms that pass to rise no more; 

Now thy Forum roars no longer, 

fallen every purple Caesar's dome — 30 

Tho' thine ocean-roll of rhythm 

sound forever of Imperial Rome, — 

Now the Rome of slaves hath perished, 

And the Rome of freemen holds her place, 

I, from out the Northern Island 35 

sundered once from all the human race, 

I salute thee, Mantovano, 

I that loved thee since my day began, 
Wielder of the stateliest measure 

ever moulded by the lips of man. 40 

1881. 1882. 



VASTNESS 

Many a hearth upon our dark globe sighs after many a vanished 

face; 
Many a planet by many a sun may roll with the dust of a vanished 

race. 



328 ENGLISH POEMS 



Raving politics, never at rest — as this poor earth's pale history 

runs, — 
What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a milHon 

million of suns? 

Lies upon this side, lies upon that side, truthless violence mourned 
by the Wise, 5 

Thousands of voices drowning his own in a popular torrent of lies 
upon lies ; 

Stately purposes, valour in battle, glorious annals of army and 

fleet. 
Death for the right cause, death for the wrong cause, trumpets 

of victory, groans of defeat; 

Innocence seethed in her mother's milk, and Charity setting the 

martyr aflame; 
Thraldom who walks with the banner of Freedom, and recks not 

to ruin a realm in her name; 10 

Faith at her zenith, or all but lost in the gloom of doubts that 

darken the schools ; 
Craft with a bunch of all-heal in her hand, followed up by her 

vassal legion of fools ; 

Trade flying over a thousand seas with her spice and her vintage, 

her silk and her corn ; 
Desolate offing, sailorless harbours, famishing populace, wharves 

forlorn ; 

Star of the morning, Hope in the sunrise; gloom of the evening, 
Life at a close; 15 

Pleasure who flaunts on her wide down-way with her flying robe 
and her poisoned rose; 

Pain, that has crawled from the corpse of Pleasure, a worm which 

writhes all day, and at night 
Stirs up again in the heart of the sleeper, and stings him back 

to the curse of the light; 

Wealth with his wines and his wedded harlots; honest Poverty, 

bare to the bone; 
Opulent Avarice, lean as Poverty; Flattery gilding the rift in a 

throne ; 20 



ALFRED TENNYSON 329 

Fame blowing out from her golden trumpet a jubilant challenge 

to Time and to Fate; 
Slander, her shadow, sowing the nettle on all the laureled graves 

of the Great; 

Love for the maiden, crowned with marriage, no regrets for 

aught that has been, 
Household happiness, gracious children, debtless competence, 

golden mean; 

National hatreds of whole generations, and pigmy spites of the 
village spire; 25 

Vows that will last to the last death-ruckle, and vows that are snapt 
in a moment of fire; 

He that has lived for the lust of the minute, and died in the doing 

it, flesh without mind; 
He that has nailed all flesh to the Cross, till Self died out in the 

love of his kind; 

Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter, and all these old 

revolutions of earth ; 
All new-old revolutions of Empire — change of the tide — what is all 

of it worth? 30 

What the philosophies, all the sciences, poesy, varying voices of 

prayer ? 
All that is noblest, all that is basest, all that is filthy with all that 

is fair? 

What is it all, if we all of us end but in being our own corpse- 
coffins at last. 

Swallowed in Vastness, lost in Silence, drowned in the deeps of a 
meaningless Past? 

What but a murmur of gnats in the gloom, or a moment's anger of 
bees in their hive? — 35 

Peace, let it be ! for I loved him, and love him forever : the dead 
are not dead but alive. 

1885. 



33° 



ENGLISH POEMS 



CROSSING THE BAR 

Sunset and evening star, 

And one clear call for me! 
And may there be no moaning of the bar, 

When I put out to sea. 

But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 5 

Too full for sound and foam, 
When that which drew from out the boundless deep 

Turns again home. 

Twilight and evening bell, 

And after that the dark! 10 

And may there be no sadness of farewell, 

When I embark; 

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place 

The flood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face, IS 

When I have crost the bar. 
J889. 1889. 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 

FROM 

SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE 
I 

I thought once how Theocritus had sung 
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, 
Who each one in a gracious hand appears 
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young; 
And as I mused it in his antique tongue, 
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, 
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years. 
Those of my own Hfe, who by turns had flung 
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, 
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move i 

Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; 
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, 
"Guess now who holds thee?" "Death," I said. But there 
The silver answer rang, "Not Death, but Love." 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 331 



Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand 
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore 
Alone upon the threshold of my door 
Of individual life, I shall command 
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand 
Serenely in the sunshine as before. 
Without the sense of that which I forbore — 
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land 
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine 
With pulses that beat double. What I do 
And what I dream include thee, as the wine 
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue 
God for myself, He hears that name of thine, 
And sees within my eyes the tears of two. 



My letters ! all dead paper, mute and white ! 

And yet they seem alive and quivering 

Against my tremulous hands, which loose the string 

And let them drop down on my knee to-night. 

This said he wished to have me in his sight 

Once, as a friend. This fixed a day in spring 

To come and touch my hand — a simple thing, 

Yet I wept for it ! This — the paper 's light — 

Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed 

As if God's future thundered on my past. 

This said, / am thine — and so its ink has paled 

With lying at my heart that beat too fast. 

And this — O love, thy words have ill availed 

If what this said I dared repeat at last ! 



How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 
I love thee to the level of everyday's 
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; 
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 



332 



ENGLISH POEMS 



I love thee with the passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. ID 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, 
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose, 
I shall but love thee better after death. 
1845-46. (1847) 1850. 

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 

What was he doing, the great god Pan, 

Down in the reeds by the river? 
Spreading ruin and scattering ban. 
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, 
And breaking the golden lilies afloat 5 

With the dragon-fly on the river. 

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, 

From the deep cool bed of the river: 
The limpid water turbidly ran, 

And the broken lilies a-dying lay, 10 

And the dragon-fly had fled away. 

Ere he brought it out of the river. 

High on the shore sat the great god Pan, 

While turbidly flowed the river; 
And hacked and hewed as a great god can, IS 

With his hard bleak steel, at the patient reed, 
Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed 

To prove it fresh from the river. 

He cut it short, did the great god Pan, 

(How tall it stood in the river!) 20 

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, 
Steadily from the outside ring. 
And notched the poor dry empty thing 

In holes, as he sat by the river. 

"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan 25 

(Laugh ad while he sat by the river), 
'The only way, since gods began 
To make sweet music, they could succeed." 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 333 

Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, 

He blew in power by the river. 30 

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan ! 

Piercing sweet by the river ! 
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! 
The sun on the hill forgot to die, 
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly 35 

Came back to dream on the river. 

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, 

To laugh as he sits by the river, 
Making a poet out of a man : 

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, 40 

For the reed which grows nevermore again 

As a reed with the reeds in the river. 



i860. 



THE FORCED RECRUIT 



In the ranks of the Austrian you found him, 

He died with his face to you all; 
Yet bury him here where around him 

You honour your bravest that fall. 

Venetian, fair-featured and slender, S 

He lies shot to death in his youth, 
With a smile on his lips over-tender 

For any mere soldier's dead mouth. 

No stranger, and yet not a traitor. 

Though alien the cloth on his breast; 10 

Underneath it how seldom a greater 

Young heart has a shot sent to rest ! 

By your enemy tortured and goaded 

To march with them, stand in their file. 

His musket (see) never was loaded, 15 

He facing your guns with that smile! 

As orphans yearn on to their mothers. 

He yearned to your patriot bands : — 
"Let me die for our Italy, brothers. 

If not in your ranks, by your hands ! 20 



334 



ENGLISH POEMS 



■'Aim straightly, fire steadily! spare me 

A ball in the body which may 
Deliver my heart here, and tear me 

This badge of the Austrian away!" 

So thought he, so died he, this morning. 25 

What then? many others have died. 
Ay, but easy for men to die scorning 

The death-stroke, who fought side by side — 

One tricolor floating above them ; 

Struck down 'mid triumphant acclaims 30 

Of an Italy rescued to love them 

And blazon the brass with their names. 

But he, without witness or honour, 

Mixed, shamed in his country's regard. 
With the tyrants who march in upon her, 35 

Died faithful and passive : 't was hard. 

'T was sublime. In a cruel restriction 

Cut off from the guerdon of sons. 
With most filial obedience, conviction. 

His soul kissed the lips of her guns. 40 

That moves you? Nay, grudge not to show it, 

While digging a grave for him here: 
The others who died, says your poet. 

Have glory, — let him have a tear. 

i860. 



ROBERT BROWNING 

HEAP CASSIA, SANDAL-BUDS, AND STRIPES 

Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes 
Of labdanum, and aloe-balls. 

Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes 
From out her hair : such balsam falls 
Down sea-side mountain pedestals. 

From tree-tops where tired winds are fain, 

Spent with the vast and howling main. 

To treasure half their island-gain. 



ROBERT BROWNING 335 

And strew faint sweetness from some old 

Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud 10 

Which breaks to dust when once unrolled ; 

Or shredded perfume, like a cloud 

From closet long to quiet vowed, 
With mothed and dropping arras hung. 
Mouldering her lute and books among, 15 

As when a queen, long dead, was young. 



1835. 



THE YEAR'S AT THE SPRING 

The year 's at the spring, 
And day 's at the morn ; 
Morning 's at seven ; 
The hillside's dew -pearled; 
The lark 's on the wing ; 
The snail 's on the thorn: 
God 's in his heaven — 
All 's right with the world ! 



1841. 



CAVALIER TUNES 

I. MARCHING ALONG 

Kentish Sir Byng stood for his king, 

Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing; 

And, pressing a troop unable to stoop 

And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, 

Marched them along, fifty-score strong, 5 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 

God for King Charles ! Pym and such carles 

To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous paries ! 

Cavaliers, up ! Lips from the cup,' 

Hands from the pasty, nor bite take nor sup 10 

Till you 're — 

Chorus. — Marching along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 

Hampden to hell and his obsequies' knell ! 

Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well! 



336 ENGLISH POEMS 



England, good cheer! Rupert is near! 15 

Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here, 

Chokus. — Marching along, fifty-score strong. 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song? 

Then, God for King Charles ! Pym and his snarls 
To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles ! 20 

Hold by the right, you double your might; 
So onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight. 
Chorus — March we along, fifty-score strong. 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song ! 

II. GIVE A ROUSE 

King Charles, and who '11 do him right now ? 
King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now ? 
Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now, 
King Charles ! 

Who gave me the goods that went since? 5 

Who raised me the house that sank once? 

Who helped me to gold I spent since? 

Who found me in wine you drank once? 

Chorus — King Charles, and who '11 do him right now ? 

King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now ? 10 
Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now. 
King Charles ! 

To whom used my boy George quaff else. 

By the old fool's side that begot him? 

For whom did he cheer and laugh else, 15 

While Noll's damned troopers shot him? 

Chorus — King Charles, and who '11 do him right now ? 
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? 
Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now, 
King Charles ! 20 

III. BOOT AND SADDLE 

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! 
Rescue my castle before the hot day 
Brightens to blue from its silvery grey. 

Chorus. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! 



ROBERT BROWNING 337 

Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you 'd say ; 5 

Many 's the friend there, will listen and pray, 
"God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay — 

Chorus. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away !" 

Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay. 
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array; 10 
Who laughs, "Good fellows ere this, by my fay, 
Chorus. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away !" 

Who ? My wife Gertrude, that, honest and gay. 
Laughs when you talk of surrendering, "Nay ! 
I've better counsellors; what counsel they? 15 

Chorus. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!" 

1842. 

MY LAST DUCHESS 
ferrara 
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, 
Looking as if she were alive. I call 
That piece a wonder, now : Fra Pandolf's hands 
Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 
Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said 5 

"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read 
Strangers like you that pictured countenance, 
The depth and passion of its earnest glance. 
But to myself they turned (since none puts by 
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) lO 

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, 
How such a glance came there ; so not the first 
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not 
Her husband's presence, only, called that spot 
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek : perhaps IS 

Fra Pandolf chanced to say, "Her mantle laps 
Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint 
Must never hope to reproduce the faint 
Half-flush that dies along her throat;" such stuff 
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 20 

For calling up that spot of joy. She had 
A heart — how shall I say? — too soon made glad, 
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er 



338 ENGLISH POEMS 



She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. 

Sir, 't was all one ! My favour at her breast, 25 

The dropping of the daylight in the west, 

The bough of cherries some officious fool 

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule 

She rode with round the terrace — all and each 

Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 30 

Or blush at least. She thanked men, — good ! but thanked 

Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked 

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name 

With anybody's gift. Who 'd stoop to blame 

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill 35 

In speech (which I have not) to make your will 

Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this 

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, 

Or there exceed, the mark," — and if she let 

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 40 

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, 

— E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose 

Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt. 

Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without 

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; 45 

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands 

As if alive. Will 't please you rise ? We '11 meet 

The company below, then. I repeat, 

The Count your master's known munificence 

Is ample warrant that no just pretense 50 

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; 

Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed 

At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go 

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, 

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, 55 

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me ! 

1842. 

THE LABORATORY 

ANCIENT REGIME 

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly, 
May gaze through these faint smokes curling whitely, 
As thou pliest thy trade in this devil's-smithy, — 
Which is the poison to poison her, prithee? 



ROBERT BROWNING 339 

He is with her, and they know that I know 5 

Where they are, what they do : they believe my tears flow 
While they laugh, laugh at me, at me fled to the drear 
Empty church, to pray God in, for them ! — I am here. 

Grind away, moisten and mash up thy paste. 

Pound at thy powder, — I am not in haste! 10 

Better sit thus and observe thy strange things, 

Than go where men wait me, and dance at the King's. 

That in the mortar — you call it a gum? 

Ah, the brave tree whence such gold oozings come! 

And yonder soft vial, the exquisite blue, IS 

Sure to taste sweetly, — is that poison too? 

Had I but all of them, thee and thy treasures. 

What a wild crowd of invisible pleasures ! 

To carry pure death in an ear-ring, a casket, 

A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket ! 20 

Soon, at the King's, a mere lozenge to give. 
And PauHne should have just thirty minutes to live! 
But to light a pastile, and Elise, with her head 
And her breast and her arms and her hands, should drop 
dead! 

Quick — is it finished ? The colour 's too grim ! 25 

Why not soft like the phial's, enticing and dim? 
Let it brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir. 
And try it and taste, ere she fix and prefer ! 

What a drop ! She 's not little, no minion like me ! 
That 's why she ensnared him : this never will free 30 

The soul from those masculine eyes, — say "no !" 
• To that pulse's magnificent come-and-go. 

For only last night, as they whispered, I brought 

My own eyes to bear on her so, that I thought 

Could I keep them one half-minute fixed, she would fall 35 

Shrivelled; she fell not; yet this does it all! 

Not that I bid you spare her the pain; 

Let death be felt and the proof remain: 

Brand, burn up, bite into its grace — 

He is sure to remember her dying face ! 40 



340 ENGLISH POEMS 



Is it done ? Take my mask off ! Nay, be not morose ; 
It kills her, and this prevents seeing it close : 
The delicate droplet, my whole fortune's fee! 
If it hurts her, beside, can it ever hurt me? 

Now, take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill; 45 

You may kiss me, old man, on my mouth if you will ! 
But brush this dust off me, lest horror it brings 
Ere I know it — next moment I dance at the King's ! 

1844. 

"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT 

TO AIX" 

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; 

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; 
"Good speed !" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew ; 
"Speed !" echoed the wall to us galloping through ; 

Behind shut the posturn, the lights sank to rest 5 

And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace 

Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; 

I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight. 

Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, 10 

Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit. 

Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 

'T was moonset at starting ; but while we drew near 

Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear; 

At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see; 15 

At Diiffeld, 't was morning as plain as could be ; 

And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime. 

So Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time !" 

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun. 

And against him the cattle stood black every one, 20 

To stare through the mist at us galloping past, 

And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, 

With resolute shoulders, each butting away 

The haze, as some bluff river-headland its spray; 



ROBERT BROWNING 341 

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back 25 

For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track; 

And one eye's black intelligence — ever that glance 

O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance ! 

And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon 

His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 30 

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned ; and cried Joris, "Stay spur ! 
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault 's not in her. 
We '11 remember at Aix" — for one heard the quick wheeze 
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees, 
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, 35 

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. 

So we were left galloping, Joris and I, 
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky; 
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 
'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff; 40 
Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, 
And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight !" 

■'How they '11 greet us !" — and all in a moment his roan 
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone; 
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight 45 

Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate, 
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim. 
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. 

Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall, 

Shook off both my jack -boots, let go belt and all, 50 

Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear. 

Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer. 

Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, 

Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 

And all I remember is, friends flocking round 55 

As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground ; 
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine. 
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine. 
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 
Was no more than his due who brought good news from 
Ghent. 60 

1838. 1845. 



342 



ENGLISH POEMS 



THE LOST LEADER 

Just for a handful of silver he left us, 

Just for a riband to stick in his coat — 
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, 

Lost all the others she lets us devote. 
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver; 5 

So much was theirs who so little allowed: 
How all our copper had gone for his service ! 

Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud ! 
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him. 

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, 10 

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents. 

Made him our pattern to live and to die ! 
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us. 

Burns, Shelley, were with us — they watch from their 
graves ! 
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, 15 

He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! 

We shall march prospering — not through his presence; 

Songs may inspirit us — not from his lyre; 
Deeds will be done — while he boasts his quiescence, 

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire. 20 

Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more. 

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, 
One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels. 

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God ! 
Life's night begins : let him never come back to us ! 25 

There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain,' 
Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight. 

Never glad confident morning again ! 
Best fight on well, for we taught him — strike gallantly. 

Menace our heart ere we master his own; 30 

Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us. 

Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! 

1845. 

HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD 

Oh, to be in England now that April 's there, 
And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, 
unaware, 



ROBERT BROWNING 343 

That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf 

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 5 

In England — now ! 

And after April, when May follows. 

And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows ! 

Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge 

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover lO 

Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge, — 

That 's the wise thrush ; he sings each song twice over 

Lest you should think he never could recapture 

The first fine careless rapture ! 

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, 15 

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew 

The buttercups, the little children's dower 

— Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower! 

1845. 

HOME THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA 

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the northwest died away; 
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; 
Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; 
In the dimmest northeast distance dawned Gibraltar, grand and 

gray. 
"Here and here did England help me : how can I help England ?" 

' say, 5 

Whoso turns, as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray. 
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. 

1838. . 1845. 

MEETING AT NIGHT 

The grey sea and the long black land ; 

And the yellow half-moon large and low ; 

And the startled little waves that leap 

In fiery ringlets from their sleep. 

As I gain the cove with pushing prow, 5 

And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. 

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach ; 
Three fields to cross till a farm appears ; 



344 



ENGLISH POEMS 



A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch 
And blue spurt of a lighted match, lo 

And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears, 
Than the two hearts beating each to each ! 

1845. 

PARTING AT MORNING 

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea, 
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim : 
And straight was a path of gold for him. 
And the need of a world of men for me. 

1845. 

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S 

CHURCH 

ROME, 15 

Vanity, saith the Preacher, vanity! 

Draw round my bed : is Anselm keeping back ? 

Nephews — sons mine — ah God, I know not ! Well — 

She men would have to be your mother once. 

Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was ! 5 

What 's done is done, and she is dead beside, 

Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since. 

And as she died so must we die ourselves, 

And thence ye may perceive the world 's a dream. 

Life, how and what is it? As here I lie 10 

In this state-chamber, dying by degrees. 

Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask, 

"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. 

Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; 

And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought 15 

With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know : 

■ — Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care ; ^ 

Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south 

He graced his carrion with, God curse the same ! 

Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence 20 

One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, 

And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats. 

And up into the aery dome where live 

The angels, and a sunbeam 's sure to lurk. 



ROBERT BROWNING 345 

And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, 25 

And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest. 

With those nine columns round me, two and two, 

The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands : 

Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe 

As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. 30 

— Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, 

Put me where I may look at him ! True peach, 

Rosy and flawless : how I earned the prize ! 

Draw close: that conflagration of my church 

— What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! 35 

My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig 

The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, 

Drop water gently till the surface sink, 

And if ye find — ah God, I know not, I ! — 

Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, 40 

And corded up in a tight olive-frail. 

Some lump, ah God, of lapis lasuli, 

Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, 

Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast — 

Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, 45 

That brave Frascati villa, with its bath. 

So let the blue lump poise between my knees, 

Like God the Father's globe on both His hands 

Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay. 

For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst ! 50 

Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years : 

Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? 

Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black — 

'T was ever antique-black I meant ! How else 

Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? 55 

The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me. 

Those Pans and nymphs ye wot of, and perchance 

Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so. 

The Saviour at his sermon on the mount. 

Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 60 

Ready to twitch the nymph's last garment off. 

And Moses with the tables — but I know 

Ye mark me not ! What do they whisper thee, 

Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope 

To revel down my villas while I gasp 65 



346 ENGLISH POEMS 



Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine 

Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at ! 

Nay, boys, ye love me — all of jasper, then! 

'T is jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve 

My bath must needs be left behind, alas ! 70 

One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut; 

There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world — 

And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray 

Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, 

And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? 75 

— That 's if ye carve my epitaph aright. 

Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, 

No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line — 

Tully, my masters ? Ulpian serves his need ! 

And then how I shall lie through centuries, 80 

And hear the blessed mutter of the mass. 

And see God made and eaten all day long, 

And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste 

Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! 

For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, 85 

Dying in state and by such slow degrees, 

I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook. 

And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, 

And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop 

Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work : 90 

And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts 

Grow, with a certain humming in my cars. 

About the life before I lived this life. 

And this life too, popes, cardinals, and priests. 

Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, 95 

Your tall pale mother with her talking-eyes. 

And new-found agate urns as fresh as day. 

And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, 

— Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend? 

No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! lOO 

Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. 

All lapis, all, sons ! Else I give the Pope 

My villas ! Will ye ever eat my heart ? 

Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick. 

They glitter like your mother's for my soul, lOS 

Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze. 



ROBERT BROWNING 347 

Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase 
With grapes, and add a visor and a Term, 
And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx 

That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, no 

To comfort me on my entablature 
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask, 
"Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there! 
For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude 

To death — ye wish it — God, ye wish it! Stone — 115 

Gritstone, a-crumble ! Clammy squares which sweat 
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through — 
And no more lapis to delight the world! 
Well, go ! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, 
But in a row ; and, going, turn your backs 120 

^ — Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, — 
And leave me in my church, the church for peace, 
That I may watch at leisure if he leers — 
Old Gandolf — at me, from his onion-stone. 
As still he envied me, so fair she was ! 125 

1845. 



SAUL 

Said Abner, "At last thou art come ! Ere I tell, ere thou speak. 
Kiss my cheek, wish me well !" Then I wished it, and did kiss 

his cheek. 
And he: "Since the King, O my friend, for thy countenance sent, 
Neither drunken nor eaten have we; nor until from his tent 
Thou return with the joyful assurance the King liveth yet, 5 

Shall our lip with the honey be bright, with the water be wet. 
For out of the black mid-tent's silence, a space of three days, 
Not a sound hath escaped to thy servants, of prayer nor of praise. 
To betoken that Saul and the spirit have ended their strife. 
And that, faint in his triumph, the monarch sinks back upon life. 10 

"Yet now my heart leaps, O beloved! God's child with his dew 
On thy gracious gold hair, and those lilies still living and blue 
Just broken to twine round thy harp-strings, as if no wild heat 
Were now raging to torture the desert !" 



348 ENGLISH POEMS 



Then I, as was meet, 
Knelt down to the God of my fathers, and rose on my feet, 15 
And ran o'er the sand burnt to powder. The tent was unlooped ; 
I pulled up the spear that obstructed, and under I stooped ; 
Hands and knees on the slippery grass-patch, all withered and gone, 
That extends to the second enclosure, I groped my way on, 
Till I felt where the foldskirts fly open. Then once more I 

prayed, 20 

And opened the foldskirts and entered, and was not afraid, 
But spoke : "Here is David, thy servant !" And no voice replied. 
At the first I saw naught but the blackness ; but soon I descried 
A something more black than the blackness — the vast, the upright 
Main prop which sustains the pavilion ; and slow into sight 25 

Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all. 
Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent-roof, showed Saul. 

He stood as erect as that tent-prop, both arms stretched out wide 
On the great cross-support in the centre, that goes to each side; 
He relaxed not a muscle, but hung there as, caught in his pangs 30 
And waiting his change, the king serpent all heavily hangs. 
Far away from his kind, in the pine, till deliverance come 
With the spring-time, — so agonized Saul, drear and stark, blind 
and dumb. 

Then I tuned my harp; took off the liHes we twine round its 

chords 
Lest they snap 'neath the stress of the noontide — those sun- 
beams like swords ! 35 
And I first played the tune all our sheep know, as, one after one, 
So docile they come to the pen-door till folding be done. 
They are white, and untorn by the bushes, for lo, they have fed 
Where the long grasses stifle the water within the stream's bed; 
And now one after one seeks its lodging, as star follows star 40 
Into eve and the blue far above us — so blue and so far ! 

Then the tune for which quails on the cornland will each leave 

his mate 
To fly after the player; then, what makes the crickets elate 
Till for boldness they fight one another ; and then, what has weight 
To set the quick jerboa a-musing outside his sand house — 45 

There are none such as he for a wonder, half bird and half mouse ! 



ROBERT BROWNING 349 

God made all the creatures, and gave them our love and our fear, 
To give sign we and they are his children, one family here. 

Then I played the help-tune of our reapers, their wine-song, 

when hand 
Grasps at hand, eye lights eye in good friendship, and great 

hearts expand 50 

And grow one in the sense of this world's life. And then, the 

last song 
When the dead man is praised on his journey — "Bear, bear him 

along 
With his few faults shut up like dead flowerets ! Are balm-seeds 

not here 
To console us? The land has none left such as he on the bier. 
Oh, would we might keep thee, my brother !" And then, the 

glad chaunt 55 

Of the marriage — first go the young maidens ; next, she whom 

we vaunt 
As the beauty, the pride of our dwelling. And then, the great 

march 
Wherein man runs to man to assist him and buttress an arch 
Naught can break ; who shall harm them, our friends ? Then, the 

chorus intoned 
As the Levites go up to the altar in glory enthroned. 60 

But I stopped here; for here in the darkness Saul groaned. 

And I paused, held my breath in such silence, and listened apart : 
And the tent shook, for mighty Saul shuddered; and sparkles 

'gan dart 
From the jewels that woke in his turban at once with a start. 
All its lordly male-sapphires, and rubies courageous at heart. 65 
So the head ; but the body still moved not, still hung there erect. 
And I bent once again to my playing, pursued it unchecked, 
As I sang, — 

"Oh, our manhood's prime vigour ! No spirit feels waste, 
Not a muscle is stopped in its playing nor sinew unbraced. 70 

Oh, the wild joys of living! the leaping from rock up to rock, 
The strong rending of boughs from the fir-tree, the cool silver 
shock 



35° 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Of the plunge in a pool's living water, the hunt of the bear, 
And the sultriness showing the lion is couched in his lair. 
And the meal, the rich dates yellowed over with gold dust divine, 75 
And the locust-flesh steeped in the pitcher, the full draught of 

wine. 
And the sleep in the dried river-channel where bulrushes tell 
That the water was wont to go warbling so softly and well. 
How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ 
All the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy! 80 

Hast thou loved the white locks of thy father, whose sword thou 

didst guard 
When he trusted thee forth with the armies, for glorious reward ? 
Didst thou see the thin hands of thy mother, held up as men sung 
The low song of the nearly departed, and hear her faint tongue 
Joining in while it could to the witness, 'Let one more attest, 85 
I have lived, seen God's hand through a lifetime, and all was for 

best !' 
Then they sung through their tears in strong triumph, not much, 

but the rest. 
And thy brothers, the help and the contest, the working whence 

grew 
Such result as, from seething grape-bundles, the spirit strained 

true : 
And the friends of thy boyhood — that boyhood of wonder and 

hope, 90 

Present promise and wealth of the future beyond the eye's scope, — 
Till lo, thou art grown to a monarch ; a people is thine ; 
And all gifts, which the world offers singly, on one head combine ! 
On one head, all the beauty and strength, love and rage (like 

the throe 
That, a- work in the rock, helps its labour and lets the gold go), 95 
High ambition and deeds which surpass it, fame crowning them, 

—all 
Brought to blaze on the head of one creature — King Saul !" 
And lo, with that leap of my spirit, heart, hand, harp, and voice. 
Each lifting Saul's name out of sorrow, each bidding rejoice 
Saul's fame in the light it was made for, — as when, dare I say, 100 
The Lord's army, in rapture of service, strains through its array. 
And upsoareth the cherubim-chariot, — "Saul!" cried I, and 

stopped, 



ROBERT BROWNING 35 1 

And waited the thing that should follow. Then Saul, who hung 

propped 
By the tent's cross-support in the centre, was struck by his name. 
Have ye seen when Spring's arrowy summons goes right to the 

aim, ■ 105 

And some mountain, the last to withstand her, — ^that held (he 

alone. 
While the vale laughed in freedom and flowers) on a broad 

bust of stone 
A year's snow bound about for a breastplate, — leaves grasp of 

the sheet? 
Fold on fold all at once it crowds thunderously down to his feet, 
And there fronts you, stark, black, but alive yet, your mountain 

of old, no 

With his rents, the successive bequeathings of ages untold, 
Yea, each harm got in fighting your battles, each furrow and scar 
Of his head thrust 'twixt you and the tempest — all hail, there 

they are! 
Now again to be softened with verdure, again hold the nest 
Of the dove, tempt the goat and its young to the green on his 

crest 115 

For their food in the ardours of summer. One long shudder 

thrilled 
All the tent till the very air tingled, then sank and was stilled 
At the King's self left standing before me, released and aware. 
What was gone, what remained ? All to traverse 'twixt hope and 

despair. 
Death was past, life not come : so he waited. Awhile his right 

hand 120 

Held the brow, helped the eyes, left too vacant, forthwith to 

reniand 
To their place what new objects should enter: 't was Saul as 

before. 
I looked up, and dared gaze at those eyes, nor was hurt any more 
Than by slow pallid sunsets in autumn, ye watch from the shore, 
At their sad level gaze o'er the ocean — a sun's slow decline 125 

Over hills which, resolved in stern silence, o'erlap and entwine 
Base with base to knit strength more intensely; so arm folded 

arm 
O'er the chest whose slow heavings subsided. 



352 ENGLISH POEMS 



What spell or what charm 
(For awhile there was trouble within me), what next should I 

urge 
To sustain him where song had restored him? Song filled to 

the verge 130 

His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields 
Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty : beyond, on what 

fields 
Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye 
And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put 

by? 
He saith, "It is good ;" still he drinks not : he lets me praise life, 135 
Gives assent, yet would die for his own part. 

Then fancies grew rife 
Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the 

sheep 
Fed in silence — above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep; 
And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie 
'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and 

the sky. 140 

And I laughed — "Since my days are ordained to be passed with 

my flocks. 
Let me people at least with my fancies the plains and rocks, 
Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show 
Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know — 
Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that 

gains 145 

And the prudence that keeps what men strive for !" And now 

these old trains 
Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so once more the 

string 
Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus : 

"Yea, my King." 
I began, "thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring 
From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute : 150 
In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit. 
Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree — how its stem trem- 
bled first 
Till it passed the kid's lip, the stag's antler ; then safely outburst 



ROBERT BROWNING 353 

The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these too, 

in turn, 
Broke a-bloom, and the palm-tree seemed perfect : yet more was 

to learn, IS5 

E'en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall 

we slight. 
When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the 

plight 
Of the palm's self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! 

stem and branch 
Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine 

shall stanch 
Every wound of man's spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine. 160 
Leave the flesh to the fate it was lit for ! the spirit be thine ! 
By the spirit, when age shall o'ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoy 
More indeed, than at first when, inconscious, the life of a boy. 
Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each deed thou 

hast done 
Dies, revives, goes to work in the world ; until, e'en as the sun 165 
Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, though 

tempests efface, 
Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere 

trace 
The results of his past summer-prime, so each ray of thy will, 
Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill 
Thy whole people, the countless, with ardour, till they too give 

forth 170 

A like cheer to their sons, who in turn fill the South and the 

North 
With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. Carouse in the 

past! 
But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last. 
As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height. 
So with man — so his power and his beauty forever take flight. 175 
No ! Again a long draught of my soul-wine ! Look forth o'er 

the years ! 
Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the 

seer's ! 
Is Saul dead ? In the depth of the vale make his tomb — bid arise 
A grey mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, built to the 

skies. 



354 ENGLISH POEMS 



Let it mark where the great First King slumbers : whose fame 

would ye know? i8o 

Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go 
In great characters cut by the scribe — Such was Saul, so he did, — 
With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid. 
For not half, they '11 affirm, is comprised there ! Which fault to 

amend. 
In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall 

spend 185 

(See, in tablets 'tis level before them) their praise, and record. 
With the gold of the graver, Saul's story, — the statesman's great 

word 
Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The river 's a-wave 
With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet-winds 

rave; 
So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part 190 
In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou 

art !" 

And behold while I sang but O Thou Who didst grant me, 

that day, 
And, before it, not seldom hast granted. Thy help to essay. 
Carry on, and complete an adventure, — my shield and my sword 
In that act where my soul was Thy servant, Thy word was my 

word, — 19s 

Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavour 
And scaling the highest, man's thought could, gazed hopeless as 

ever 
On the new stretch of heaven above me, — till, mighty to save. 
Just one lift of Thy hand cleared that distance — God's throne 

from man's grave ! 
Let me tell out my tale to its ending — my voice to my heart, 200 
Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night I took 

part, 
As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep, 
And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep ! 
For I wake in the grey dewy covert, while Hebron upheaves 
The dawn, struggling with night, on his shoulder, and Kidron 

retrieves 205 

Slow the damage of yesterday's sunshine. 

I say, then, my song 
While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and, ever more strong, 



ROBERT BROWNING 355 

Made a proffer of good to console him, he slowly resumed 
His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand replumed 
His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the swathes 210 
Of his turban, and see — the huge sweat that his countenance 

bathes, 
He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his loins as of 

yore, 
And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set before. 
He is Saul ye remember in glory, ere error had bent 
The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though 

much spent 215 

Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same God did 

choose 
To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose. 
So sank he along by the tent-prop, till, stayed by the pile 
Of his armour and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there 

awhile, 
And sat out my singing, — one arm round the tent-prop, to raise 220 
His bent head, and the other hung slack, — till I touched on the 

praise 
I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient there; 
And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was 

'ware 
That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees 
Which were thrust out on each side around me, like oak-roots 

which please 225 

To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know 
If the best I could do had brought solace : he spoke not, but slow 
Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he laid it with care 
Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow ; through my 

hair 
The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with 

kind power — 230 

All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower. 
Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinised mine — 
And oh, all my heart how it loved him ! but where was the sign ? 
I yearned — "Could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss, 
I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this ; 235 
I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence, 
As this moment, — had love but the warrant love's heart to dis- 
pense !" 



356 ENGLISH POEMS 



Then the truth came upon me. No harp more — no song more! 
outbroke — 

"I have gone the whole round of creation : I saw and I spoke ; 
I, a work of God's hand for that purpose, received in my brain 240 
And pronounced on the rest of His handwork — returned Him 

again 
His creation's approval or censure ; I spoke as I saw, 
I report, as a man may of God's work, all 's love, yet all 's law. 
Now I lay down the judgeship He lent me. Each faculty tasked 
To perceive Him has gained an abyss where a dewdrop was 

asked. 245 

Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare. 
Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite 

Care! 
Do I task any faculty highest, to image success? 
I but open my eyes — and perfection, no more and no less. 
In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God 250 
In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod. 
And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew 
(With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too) 
The submission of man's nothing-perfect to God's all-complete, 
As by each new obeisance in spirit I climb to His feet. 255 

Yet with all this abounding experience, this Deity known, 
I shall dare to discover some province, some gift, of my own. 
There 's a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink, 
I am fain to keep still in abeyance (I laugh as I think), 
Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst 260 

E'en the Giver in one gift. Behold, I could love if I durst! 
But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o'ertake 
God's own speed in the one way of love; I abstain for love's 

sake. 
— What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great 

and small, 
Nine and ninety, flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth 

appal ? 265 

In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all? 
Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift. 
That I doubt His own love can compete with it? here the parts 

shift? 
Here the creature surpass the Creator; the end, what began? 



ROBERT BROWNING 357 

Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man, 270 
And dare doubt He alone shall not help him Who yet alone 

can? 
Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less 

power, 
To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower 
Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul, 
Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole? 275 
And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest). 
These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the 

best? 
Ay, to save and redeem and restore him ; maintain at the height 
This perfection; succeed, with life's dayspring, death's minute 

of night; 
Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mistake, 280 

Saul the failure, the ruin, he seems now, and bid him awake 
From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself set 
Clear and safe in new light, and new life, — a new harmony yet 
To be run and continued, and ended — who knows? — or endure! 
The man taught enough by life's dream, of the rest to make 

sure ; 285 

By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss. 
And the next world's reward and repose by the struggles in this. 

"I believe it ! 'T is Thou, God, That givest, 't is I who receive : 
In the First is the last, in Thy will is my power to believe. 
All's one gift: Thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my 

prayer, 290 

As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air. 
From Thy will stream the worlds, life and Nature, thy dread 

Sabaoth : 
/ will ? — the mere atoms despise me ! Why am I not loth 
To look that, even that, in the face too? Why is it I dare 
Think but lightly of such impuissance ? What stops my despair ? 295 
This : — 't is not what man does which exalts him, but what man 

would do ! 
See the King — I would help him, but cannot; the wishes fall 

through. 
Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich. 
To fill up his life starve my own out, I would — knowing which, 
I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now ! 300 



358 ENGLISH POEMS 



Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst Thou — so wilt 

Thou! 
So shall crown Thee the topmost, inefifablest, uttermost crown; 
And Thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down 
One spot for the creature to stand in ! It is by no breath. 
Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with 

death ! 305 

As Thy love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved 
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being beloved! 
He Who did most shall bear most ; the Strongest shall stand the 

most weak. 
'T is the weakness in strength, that I cry for ! my flesh, that I 

seek 
In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be 310 
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me. 
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever ; a Hand like this hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See the Christ 

stand !" 

I know not too well how I found my way home in the night. 
There were witnesses, cohorts, about me, to left and to right; 315 
Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware : 
I repressed, I got through them, as hardly, as strugglingly, 

there. 
As a runner beset by the populace famished for news — 
Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with 

her crews ; 
And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot 320 
Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge : but I fainted not, 
For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, sup- 
pressed 
All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest. 
Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest. 
Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth — 325 
Not so much but I saw it die out in the day's tender birth; 
In the gathered intensity brought to the grey of the hills; 
In the shuddering forests' held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills; 
In the startled wild beasts that bore oiif, each with eye sidling 

still 
Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and 
chill, 330 



ROBERT BROWNING 359 

That rose heavily as I approached them, made stupid with awe : 
E'en the serpent that slid away silent — he felt the new law. 
The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the 

flowers, 
The same worked in the heart of the cedar, and moved the vine- 
bowers ; 
And the little brooks witnessing murmured, persistent and low, 335 
With their obstinate, all but hushed voices — "E'en so, it is so !" 

1845, 1855- 

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles 

Miles and miles 
On the solitary pastures where our sheep, 

Half-asleep, 
Tinkle homeward through the twilight, stray or stop 5 

As they crop, 
Was the site once of a city great and gay 

(So they say), 
Of our country's very capital, its prince 

Ages since 10 

Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far 

Peace or war. 

Now the country does not even boast a tree. 

As you see, 
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills 15 

From the hills 
Intersect and give a name to (else they run 

Into one). 
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires 

Up like fires 20 

O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall 

Bounding all. 
Made of marble, men might march on nor be pressed, 

Twelve abreast. 

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass 25 

Never was ! 
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'erspreads 

And embeds 



360 ENGLISH POEMS 



Every vestige of the city, guessed alone, 

Stock or stone, — 30 

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe 

Long ago; 
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame 

Struck them tame; 
And that glory and that shame alike the gold 35 

Bought and sold. 

Now the single little turret that remains 

On the plains, 
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd 

Overscored, 40 

While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks 

Through the chinks, 
Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time 

Sprang sublime. 
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced 45 

As they raced. 
And the monarch and his minions and his dames 

Viewed the games. 

And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve 

Smiles to leave 50 

To their folding all our many-tinkling fleece 

In such peace. 
And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey 

Melt away. 
That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair 55 

Waits me there 
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul 

For the goal, 
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, 
dumb. 

Till I come. 60 

But he looked upon the city, every side, 

Far and wide. 
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades' 

Colonnades, 
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, — and then, 65 

All the men! 



ROBERT BROWNING 361 

When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand, 

Either hand 
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace 

Of my face, 70 

Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech 

Each on each. 

In one year they sent a million fighters forth 

South and north. 
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high 75 

As the sky. 
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force — 

Gold, of course. 
Oh heart ! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns ! 

Earth's returns 80 

For whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin ! 

Shut them in. 
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest ! 

Love is best. 

1855. 

FRA LIPPO LIPPI 

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave! 

You need not clap your torches to my face. 

Zooks ! what 's to blame ? you think you see a monk ! 

What, 't is past midnight, and you go the rounds. 

And here you catch me at an alley's end 5 

Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? 

The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up. 

Do, — harry out, if you must show your zeal. 

Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, 

And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, 10 

Weke, weke, that 's crept to keep him company ! 

Aha ! you know your betters ? Then you '11 take 

Your hand away that 's fiddling on my throat, 

And please to know me likewise. Who am I? 

Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend 15 

Three streets off — he 's a certain — how d' ye call ? 

Master — a — Cosimo of the Medici, 

r the house that caps the corner. Boh ! you were best ! 



362 ENGLISH POEMS 



Remember and tell me, the day you 're hanged, 
How yoH affected such a guUet's-gripe ! 20 

But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves 
Pick up a manner, nor discredit you : 
Zooks ! are we pilchards, that they sweep the streejs 
And count fair prize what comes into their net? 
He 's Judas to a tittle, that man is ! 25 

Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends. 
Lord, I 'm not angry ! Bid your hang-dogs go 
Drink out this quarter-florin to the health 
Of the munificent House that harbours me 
(And many more beside, lads! more beside!), 30 

And all 's come square again. I 'd like his face — 
His, elbowing on his comrade in the door 
With the pike and lantern — for the slave that holds 
John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair 
With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say) 35 
And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped ! 
It 's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, 
A wood-coal, or the like? or you should see! 
Yes, I 'm the painter, since you style me so. 
What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down, 40 

You know them, and they take you ? like enough ! 
I saw the proper twinkle in your eye — 
'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. 
Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. 
Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up 
bands 45 

To roam the town and sing out carnival. 
And I 've been three weeks shut within my mew, 
A-painting for the great man, saints and saints 
And saints again. I could not paint all night — 
Ouf ! I leaned out of window for fresh air. 50 

There came a hurry of feet and little feet, 
A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song — 
Flower 0' the broom, 

Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! 
Flower 0' the quince, 55 

/ let Lisa go, and what good in life since f 
Flower 0' the thyme, — and so on. Round they went. 
Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter 



ROBERT BROWNING 363 

Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight — three slim 
shapes, 

And a face that looked up — zooks, sir, flesh and blood, 60 

That 's all I 'm made of ! Into shreds it went, 

Curtain and counterpane and coverlet, 

All the bed-furniture — a dozen knots, 

There was a ladder ! Down I let myself. 

Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped, 65 

And after them. I came up with the fun 

Hard by Saint Lawrence, hail fellow, well met, — 

Flower 0' the rose. 

If I've been merry, what matter who knows? 

And so, as I was stealing back again, 70 

To get to bed and have a bit of sleep 

Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work 

On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast 

With his great round stone to subdue the flesh, 

You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see ! 75 

Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head — 

Mine 's shaved — a monk, you say — the sting 's in that ! 

If Master Cosimo announced himself, 

Mum 's the word naturally ; but a monk ! 

Come, what am I a beast for ? tell us, now ! 80 

I was a baby when my mother died. 

And father died, and left me in the street. 

I starved there, God knows how, a year or two. 

On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks, 

Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day, 85 

My stomach being empty as your hat. 

The wind doubled me up and down I went. 

Old aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand 

(Its fellow was a stinger, as I knew). 

And so along the wall, over the bridge, go 

By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there. 

While I stood munching my first bread that month : 
"So, boy, you 're minded," quoth the good fat father. 

Wiping his own mouth — 't was refection-time, — 
"To quit this very miserable world? 95 

Will you renounce" — "the mouthful of bread ?" thought I ; 
"By no means !" Brief, they made a monk of me : 

I did renounce the world, its pride and greed. 



364 ENGLISH POEMS 



Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house, 
Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici 100 

Have given their hearts to — all at eight years old. 
Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure, 
'T was not for nothing — the good bellyful, 
The warm serge and the rope that goes all round. 
And day-long blessed idleness beside ! 105 

"Let 's see what the urchin 's fit for" — that came next. 
Not overmuch their way, I must confess. 
Such a to-do ! They tried me with their books : 
Lord, they 'd have taught me Latin in pure waste ! 
Flower 0' the clove, no 

All the Latin I construe is "amo," I love! 
But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets 
Eight years together, as my fortune was. 
Watching folk's faces to know who will fling 
The bit of half-stripped grape-bunch he desires, 115 

And who will curse or kick him for his pains, — 
Which gentleman processional and fine. 
Holding a candle to the sacrament. 
Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch 
The droppings of the wax to sell again, 120 

Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped, — 
How say I? nay, which dog bites, which lets drop 
His bone from the heap of offal in the street, — 
Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike; 
He learns the look of things, and none the less 125 

For admonition from the hunger-pinch. 
I had a store of such remarks, be sure. 
Which, after I found leisure, turned to use: 
I drew men's faces on my copy-books, 
Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge, 130 

Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes. 
Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's, 
And made a string of pictures of the world 
Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun. 
On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked 

black. 135 

"Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d' ye say? 
In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. 
What if at last we get our man of pa>^-" 



ROBERT BROWNING 365 

We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese 

And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine 140 

And put the front on it that ought to be!" 

And hereupon he bade me daub away. 

Thank you ! my head being crammed, the walls a blank, 

Never was such prompt disemburdening. 

First, every sort of monk, the black and white, 145 

I drew them, fat and lean : then, folk at church, 

From good old gossips waiting to confess 

Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends, 

To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot. 

Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there 150 

With the little children round him in a row 

Of admiration, half for his beard, and half 

For that white anger of his victim's son 

Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm, 

Signing himself with the other because of Christ 155 

(Whose sad face on the cross sees only this 

After the passion of a thousand years). 

Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head 

(Which the intense eyes looked through), came at eve 

On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, 160 

Her pair of earrings, and a bunch of flowers, 

(The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone 

I painted all, then cried, " 'T is ask and have ; 

Choose, for more 's ready !" laid the ladder flat. 

And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall. 165 

The monks closed in a circle, and praised loud 

Till checked, taught what to see and not to see. 

Being simple bodies : "That 's the very man ! 

Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog! 

That woman 's like the Prior's niece who comes 170 

To care about his asthma : it 's the life !" 

But there my triumph's straw-fire flared and funked; 

Their betters took their turn to see and say : 

The Prior and the learned pulled a face, 

And stopped all that in no time: "How? what's here? 175 

Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all ! 

Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the true 

As much as pea and pea! it's devil's game! 

Your business is not to catch men with show, 



366 ENGLISH POEMS 



With homage to the perishable clay, i8o 

But lift them over it, ignore it all, 

Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh, 

Your business is to paint the souls of men — 

Man's soul, and it 's a fire, smoke — no, it 's not — 

It 's vapour done up like a new-born babe 185 

(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) — 

It's — well, what matters talking, it's the soul! 

Give us no more of body than shows soul ! 

Here 's Giotto, with his saint a-praising God, 

That sets us praising, — why not stop with him! 190 

Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head 

With wonder at lines, colours, and what not? 

Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms ! 

Rub all out, try at it a second time! 

Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts, 195 

She's just my niece — Herodias, I would say, — 

Who went and danced, and got men's heads cut off! 

Have it all out!" Now, is this sense, I ask? 

A fine way to paint soul, by painting body 

So ill the eye can't stop there, must go further, 200 

And can't fare worse ! Thus yellow does for white 

When what you put for yellow 's simply black, 

And any sort of meaning looks intense 

When all beside itself means and looks naught. 

Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn, 205 

Left foot and right foot, go a double step, 

Make his flesh liker and his soul more like, 

Both in their order? Take the prettiest face, 

The Prior's niece — patron-saint,— is it so pretty 

You can't discover if it means hope, fear, 210 

Sorrow, or joy? won't beauty go with these? 

Suppose I 've made her eyes all right and blue, 

Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash. 

And then add soul and heighten them threefold' 

Or say there's beauty with no soul at all 215 

(I never saw it — put the case the same), ' 

If you get simple beauty and naught else. 

You get about the best thing God invents; 

That 's somewhat ; and you '11 find the soul you have missed, 

Within yourself, when you return Him thanks. 220 



ROBERT BROWNING 367 

"Rub all out!" Well, well, there's my life, in short, 
And so the thing has gone on ever since. 
I 'm grown a man no doubt, I 've broken bounds : 
You should not take a fellow eight years old 
And make him swear to never kiss the girls. 225 

I 'm my own master, paint now as I please — 
Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house ! 
Lord, it 's fast holding by the rings in front — 
Those great rings serve more purposes than just 
To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse! 230 

And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes 
Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work, 
The heads shake still — "It 's art's decline, my son ! 
You 're not of the true painters, great and old ; 
Brother Angelico 's the man, you '11 find ; 235 

Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer: 
Fag on at flesh, you '11 never make the third !" 
Flower 0' the pine, 

You keep your mistr — manners, and I'll stick to mine! 
I 'm not the third, then : bless us, they must know ! 240 
Don't you think they 're the likeliest to know. 
They with their Latin? So I swallow my rage, 
Clench my teeth, suck my lips in' tight, and paint 
To please them — sometimes do, and sometimes don't; 
For, doing most, there 's pretty sure to come 245 

A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints — 
A laugh, a cry, the business of the world — 
(Flower o' the peach, 

Death for us all, and his own life for each!) 
And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over, 250 

The world and life 's too big to pass for a dream, 
And I do these wild things in sheer despite, 
And play the fooleries you catch me at 
In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass 
After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so, 255 

Although the miller does not preach to him 
The only good of grass is to make chaff. 
What would men have? Do they like grass or no — 
May they or may n't they ? all I want 's the thing 
Settled forever one way. As it is, 260 

You tell too many lies and hurt yourself: 



368 ENGLISH POEMS 



You don't like what you only like too much ; 

You do like what, if given you at your word, 

You find abundantly detestable. 

For me, I think I speak as I was taught : 265 

I always see the garden, and God there 

A-making man's wife; and my lesson learned, 

The value and significance of flesh, 

I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards. 

You understand me : I 'm a beast, I know. 270 

But see, now — why, I see as certainly 
As that the morning-star 's about to shine, 
What will hap some day. We've a youngster here 
Comes to our convent, studies what I do, 
Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop: 275 

His name is Guidi — he'll not mind the monks — 
They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk — 
He picks my practice up — he '11 paint apace, 
I hope so — though I never live so long, 
I know what's sure to follow. You be judge! 280 

You speak no Latin more than I, belike ; 
However, you 're my man, you 've seen the world 
— The beauty and the wonder and the power, 
The shapes of things, their colours, lights, and shades, 
Changes, surprises, — and God made it all! 285 

— For what? Do you feel thankful, ay or no, 
For this fair town's face, yonder river's line, 
The mountain round it and the sky above, 
Much more the figures of man, woman, child. 
These are the frame to ? What 's it all about ? 290 

To be passed over, despised ? or dwelt upon. 
Wondered at ? "Oh, this last of course !" you say. 
But why not do as well as say, — paint these 
Just as they are, careless what comes of it? 
God's works — paint any one, and count it crime 295 

To let a truth slip. Don't object, "His works 
Are here already ; Nature is complete : 
Suppose you reproduce her (which you can't). 
There's no advantage! you must beat her, then." 
For, don't you mark ? we 're made so that we love 300 

First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; 



ROBERT BROWNING 369 

And so they are better, painted — ^better to us, 

Which is the same thing. Art was given for that ; 

God uses us to help each other so, 305 

Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now, 

Your culHon's hanging face? A bit of chalk. 

And trust me but you should, though ! How much more 

If I drew higher things with the same truth ! 

That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place, 310 

Interpret God to all of you ! Oh, oh. 

It makes me mad to see what men shall do 

And we in our graves ! This world 's no blot for us, 

Nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: 

To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 315 

"Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer!" 
Strikes in the Prior: "when your meaning's plain, 
It does not say to folk, 'Remember matins !' 
Or 'Mind you fast next Friday !' " Why, for this 
What need of art at all ? A skull and bones, 320 

Two bits of stick nailed cross-wise, or, what 's best, 
A bell to chime the hour with, does as well. 
I painted a Saint Lawrence six months since 
At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style. 

"How looks my painting, now the scaffold 's down ?" 325 
I ask a brother. "Hugely," he returns — 

"Already not one phiz of your three slaves 
Who turn the deacon off his toasted side. 
But 's scratched and prodded to our heart's content, 
The pious people have so eased their own 330 

With coming to say prayers there in a rage : 
We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. 
Expect another job this time next year, 
For pity and religion grow i' the crowd — 
Your painting serves its purpose !" Hang the fools ! 335 
— That is — you '11 not mistake an idle word 
Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, God wot, 
Tasting the air this spicy night which turns 
The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine! 
Oh, the Church knows ! don't misreport me, now ! 340 

It 's natural a poor monk out of bounds 
Should have his apt word to excuse himself. 
And hearken how I plot to make amends. 



37° 



ENGLISH POEMS 



I have bethought me : I shall paint a piece 

— There 's for you ! Give me six months, then go, see 345 

Something in Sant' Ambrogio's ! Bless the nuns! 

They want a cast o' my office. I shall paint 

God in the midst. Madonna and her babe, 

Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood. 

Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet 35° 

As puff on puff of grated orris-root 

When ladies crowd to church at midsummer. 

And then i' the front, of course a saint or two — 

St. John, because he saves the Florentines ; 

St. Ambrose, who puts down in black and white 355 

The convent's friends, and gives them a long day ; 

And Job, I must have him there past mistake. 

The man of Uz (and Us without the z. 

Painters who need his patience). Well, all these 

Secured at their devotion, up shall come 360 

Out of a corner when you least expect, 

As one by a dark stair into a great light, 

Music and talking, who but Lippo ! I ! — 

Mazed, motionless, and moon-struck — I 'm the man ! 

Back I shrink— what is this I see and hear? 365 

I, caught up with my monk's things by mistake. 

My old serge gown and rope that goes all round, 

I, in this presence, this pure company ! 

Where's a hole, where 's a corner for escape? 

Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing 370 

Forward, puts out a soft palm — "Not so fast!" 

— Addresses the celestial presence: "Nay — 

He made you and devised you, after all. 

Though he 's none of you ! Could Saint John, there, draw — 

His camel-hair make up a painting-brush? 375 

We come to brother Lippo for all that; 

Iste per fecit opus!" So all smile — 

I shuffle sideways with my blushing face, 

Under the cover of a hundred wings 

Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you 're gay 380 

And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut, 

Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops 

The hot-head husband! Thus I scuttle off 

To some safe bench behind, not letting go 



ROBERT BROWNING 



371 



The palm of her, the little lily thing 385 

That spoke the good word for me in the nick. 

Like the Prior's niece — Saint Lucy, I would say. 

And so all 's saved for me, and for the church 

A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence! 

Your hand, sir, and good-by : no lights, no lights ! 390 

The street 's hushed, and I know my own way back. 

Don't fear me ! There 's the gray beginning. Zooks ! 

1855- 



"CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME" 

My first thought was, he lied in every word. 
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye 
Askance to watch the working of his lie 

On mine, and mouth scarce able to afiford 

Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored 5 

Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby. 

What else should he be set for, with his stafif? 
What, save to waylay with his lies, insnare 
All travellers who might find him posted there, 
And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh 10 

Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph 
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare, 

If at his counsel I should turn aside 

Into that ominous tract which, all agree, 

Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly 15 

I did turn as he pointed; neither pride 

Nor hope rekindling at the end descried, 

So much as gladness that some end might be. 

For — what with my whole world-wide wandering, 

What with my search drawn out through years, my 

hope 20 

Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope 

With that obstreperous joy success would bring, — 

I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring 

My heart made, finding failure in its scope. 



372 



ENGLISH POEMS 



As when a sick man very near to death 25 

Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end 
The tears, and takes the farewell of each friend, 
And hears one bid the other go, draw breath 
Freelier outside ("since all is o'er," he saith, 
"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend") ; 30 

While some discuss if near the other graves 
Be room enough for this, and when a day 
Suits best for carrying the corpse away, 

With care about the banners, scarves, and staves; 

And still the man hears all, and only craves 35 

He may not shame such tender love and stay: — 

Thus I had so long suffered in this quest, 
Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ 
So many times among "The Band" — to wit. 
The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed 40 
Their steps, — that just to fail as they, seemed best, 
And all the doubt was now — should I be fit? 

So, quiet as despair, I turned from him, 
That hateful cripple, out of his highway 
Into the path he pointed. All the day 45 

Had been a dreary one at best, and dim 

Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim 
Red leer to see the plain catch its estray. 

For mark ! no sooner was I fairly found 

Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two, 50 

Than, pausing to throw backward a last view 

O'er the safe road, 't was gone : grey plain all round ; 

Nothing but plain to the horizon's boimd. 

I might go on; naught else remained to do. 

So on I went. I think I never saw 55 

Such starved ignoble nature ; nothing throve : 
For flowers — as well expect a cedar grove! 
But cockle, spurge, according to their law 
Might propagate their kind, with none to awe. 

You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove. 60 



ROBERT BROWNING 373 

No ! penury, inertness, and grimace. 

In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See 
Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly; 
"It nothing skills ; I cannot help my case : 

'T is the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place, 65 

Calcine its clods, and set my prisoners free." 

If there pushed any ragged thistlestalk 

Above its mates, the head was chopped ; the bents 
Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents 
In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to balk 70 
All hope of greenness ? 't is a brute must walk 
Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents. 

As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair 
In leprosy ; thin dry blades pricked the mud. 
Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. 75 

One stiflf blind horse, his every bone a-stare, 

Stood stupefied, however he came there, 

Thrust out past service from the Devil's stud! 

Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, 

With that red, gaunt, and colloped neck a-strain, 80 
And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane. 

Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe : 

I never saw a brute I hated so ; 

He must be wicked to deserve such pain. 

I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart. 85 

As a man calls for wine before he fights, 
I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights. 

Ere fitly I could hope to play my part. 

Think first, fight afterwards — the soldier's art : 
■ One taste of the old time sets all to rights. 90 

Not it ! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face 

Beneath its garniture of curly gold, 

Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold 
An arm in mine to fix me to the place, 
That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace! 95 

Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold. 



374 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Giles, then, the soul of honour — there he stands 
Frank as ten years ago when knighted first. 
What honest man should dare (he said) he durst. 

Good — but the scene shifts — faugh ! what hangman 

hands loo 

Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands 
Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst ! 

Better this present than a past like that; 

Back therefore to my darkening path again ! 

No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain. 105 

Will the night send a howlet or a bat? 
I asked; when something on the dismal flat 

Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train. 

A sudden little river crossed my path 

As unexpected as a serpent comes : no 

No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms; 
This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath 
For the fiend's glowing hoof — to see the wrath 

Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes. 

So petty, yet so spiteful! All along, 115 

Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it; 
Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit 
Of mute despair, a suicidal throng: 
The river which had done them all the wrong, 

Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit. 120 

Which while I forded, — good saints, how I feared 
To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek, 
Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek 

For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard! 

— It may have been a water-rat I speared, 125 

But, ugh ! it sounded like a baby's shriek. 

Glad was I when I reached the other bank. 

Now for a better country. Vain presage ! 

Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage. 
Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank 130 

Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank, 

Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage — 



ROBERT BROWNING 375 

The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque. 

What penned them there, with all the plain to choose ? 

No footprint leading to that horrid mews, I35 

None out of it. Mad brewage set to work 
Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk 

Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews. 

And more than that — a furlong on — why, there! 

What bad use was that engine for, that wheel, 140 

Or brake, not wheel — that harrow fit to reel 

Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air 

Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware, 

Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel. 

Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood, 145 

Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth 
Desperate and done with (so a fool finds mirth. 

Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood 

Changes and off he goes !) : within a rood — 

Bog, clay, and rubble, sand, and stark black dearth. 150 

Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim. 
Now patches where some leanness of the soil's 
Broke into moss or substances like boils; 
Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him 
Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim 155 

Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils. 

And just as far as ever from the end! 

Naught in the distance but the evening, naught 
To point my footstep further! At the thought, 
A great black bird, ApoUyon's bosom-friend, 160 

Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing, dragon-penned. 
That brushed my cap — perchance the guide I sought. 

For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, 

'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place 

All round to mountains — with such name to grace 165 

Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view. 

How thus they had surprised me, — solve it, you ! 
How to get from them was no clearer case. 



376 - ENGLISH POEMS 



Yet half I seemed to recognise some trick 

Of mischief happened to me, God knows when — 170 
In a bad dream, perhaps. Here ended, then. 

Progress this way. When, in the very nick 

Of giving up one time more, came a cHck 

As when a trap shuts — you 're inside the den. 

Burningly it came on me all at once, 175 

This was the place ! those two hills on the right. 
Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight; 

While to the left, a tall scalped mountain dunce, 

Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce. 

After a life spent training for the sight ! 180 

What in the midst lay but the Tower itself? 

The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, 
Built of brown stone, without a counterpart 
In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf 
Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf 185 

He strikes on, only when the timbers start. 

Not see? because of night perhaps? — why, day 
Came back again for that ! before it left. 
The dying sunset kindled through a cleft : 

The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay, 190 

Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay, — 
"Now stab and end the creature — ^to the heft !" 

Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled 
Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears, 
Of all the lost adventurers my peers, — 195 

How such a one was strong, and such was bold. 

And such was fortunate, yet each of old 

Lost, lost ! one moment knelled the woe of years. 

There they stood, ranged along the hill-sides, met 

To view the last of me, a living frame 200 

For one more picture ! in a sheet of flame 

I saw them and I knew them all. And yet 

Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set. 

And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came." 

1855. 



ROBERT BROWNING 377 



THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER 

I said, "Then, dearest, since 'tis so. 
Since now at length my fate I know. 
Since nothing all my love avails, 
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails, 

Since this was written and needs must be, 5 

My whole heart rises up to bless 
Your name in pride and thankfulness i 
Take back the hope you gave, — I claim 
Only a memory of the same, 
^— And this beside, if you will not blame, 10 

Your leave for one more last ride with me." 

My mistress bent that brow of hers ; 

Those deep dark eyes, where pride demurs 

When pity would be softening through, 

Fixed me a breathing-while or two 15 

With life or death in the balance: right! 
The blood replenished me again ; 
My last thought was at least not vain: 
I and my mistress, side by side 

Shall be together, breathe and ride; 20 

So one day more am I deified. 

Who knows but the world may end to-night? 

Hush! if you saw some western cloud 

All billowy-bosomed, over-bowed 

By many benedictions — sun's 25 

And moon's and evening-star's at once, — 

And so you, looking and loving best. 
Conscious grew your passion drew 
Cloud, sunset, moonrise, star-shine too, 
Down on you, near and yet more near, 30 

Till flesh must fade for heaven was here!— 
Thus leant she and lingered — joy and fear! 

Thus lay she a moment on my breast. 

Then we began to ride. My soul 

Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll 35 

Freshening and fluttering in the wind. 



378 ENGLISH POEMS 

Past hopes already lay behind. 

What need to strive with a life awry? 
Had I said that, had I done this, 

So might I gain, so might I miss. 40 

Might she have loved me? just as well 
She might have hated, who can tell ! 
Where had I been now if the worst befell? 

And here we are riding, she and I. 

Fail I alone, in words and deeds? 45 

Why, all men strive, and who succeeds? 
We rode; it seemed my spirit flew, 
Saw other regions, cities new. 

As the world rushed by on either side. 
I thought. All labour, yet no less So 

Bear up beneath their unsuccess. 
Look at the end of work, contrast 
The petty done, the undone vast. 
This present of theirs with the hopeful past ! 

I hoped she would love me : here we ride. 55 

What hand and brain went ever paired? 
What heart alike conceived and dared? 
What act proved all its thought had been? 
What will but felt the fleshly screen? 

We ride, and I see her bosom heave. 60 

There 's many a crown for who can reach. 
Ten lines, a statesman's life in each! 
The flag stuck on a heap of bones, 
A soldier's doing! what atones? 
They scratch his name on the Abbey stones. 65 

My riding is better, by their leave. 

What does it all mean, poet? Well, 

Your brains beat into rhythm, you tell 

What we felt only; you expressed 

You hold things beautiful the best, 70 

And place them in rhyme so, side by side. 
'T is something, nay 't is much : but then. 
Have you yourself what's best for men? 
Are you — poor, sick, old ere your time — 



ROBERT BROWNING 379 

Nearer one whit your own sublime 75 

Than we who never have turned a rhyme! 
Sing, Riding's a joy! For me, I ride. 

And you, great sculptor — so you gave 

A score of years to Art, her slave, 

And that 's your Venus, whence we turn 80 

To yonder girl that fords the burn! 

You acquiesce, and shall I repine? 
What, man of music, you grown grey 
With notes and nothing else to say. 

Is this your sole praise from a friend, 85 

"Greatly his opera's strains intend, 
But in music we know how fashions end !" 

I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine. 

Who knows what 's fit for us ? Had fate 

Proposed bliss here should sublimate 90 

My being — had I signed the bond, — 

Still one must lead some life beyond, 

Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. 
This foot once planted on the goal. 

This glory-garland round my soul, 95 

Could I descry such ? Try and test ! 
I sink back shuddering from the quest. 
Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? 

Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride. 

And yet — she has not spoke so long! 100 

What if heaven be that, fair and strong 
At life's best, with our eyes upturned 
Whither life's flower is first discerned, 

We, fixed so, ever should so abide? 
What if we still ride on, we two, 105 

With life forever old yet new. 
Changed not in kind but in degree, 
The instant made eternity, — 
And heaven just prove that I and she 

Ride, ride together, forever ride? no 

1855. 



380 ENGLISH POEMS 



THE PATRIOT 

AN OLD STORY 

It was roses, roses, all the way. 

With myrtle mixed in my path like mad; 

The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway; 

The church-spires flamed, such flags they had, 

A year ago on this very day. 5 

The air broke into a mist with bells ; 

The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries. 
Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels — 

But give me your sun from yonder skies !" 
They had answered, "And afterward, what else?" 10 

Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun 

To give it my loving friends to keep ! 
Naught man could do, have I left undone : 

And you see my harvest, what I reap 
This very day, now a year is run. 15 

There 's nobody on the house-tops now — 

Just a palsied few at the windows set; 
For the best of the sight is, all allow, 

At the Shambles' Gate — or, better yet. 
By the very scaffold's foot, I trow. 20 

I go in the rain, and, more than needs, 

A rope cuts both my wrists behind; 
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds, 

For they fling, whoever has a mind. 
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds. 2= 

Thus I entered, and thus I go ! 

In triumphs, people have dropped down dead : 
"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe 

Me?" God might question; now, instead, 
'T is God shall repay : I am safer so. 30 

1855 



ROBERT BROWNING 38 1 

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 

SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE 

Let US begin and carry up this corpse, 

Singing together. 
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes. 

Each in its tether 
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, $ 

Cared-for till cock-crow : 
Look out if yonder be not day again 

Rimming the rock-row ! 
That 's the appropriate country ; there man's thought, 

Rarer, intenser, 10 

Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought. 

Chafes in the censer. 
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop; 

Seek we sepulture 
On a tall mountain, citied to the top, 15 

Crowded with culture! 
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; 

Clouds overcome it; 
No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's 

Circling its summit. 20 

Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights; 

Wait ye the warning? 
Our low life was the level's and the night's; 

He 's for the morning. 
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 2$ 

'Ware the beholders ! 
This is our master, famous, calm and dead. 

Borne on our shoulders. 
Sleep, crop and herd ! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, 

Safe from the weather! 30 

He whom we convoy to his grave aloft. 

Singing together, 
He was a man born with thy face and throat. 

Lyric Apollo ! 
Long he lived nameless : how should Spring take note 35 

Winter would follow? 
Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone! 

Cramped' and diminished, 



382 ENGLISH POEMS 



Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon ! 

My dance is finished"? 40 

No, that 's the world's way : (keep the mountain-side, 

Make for the city!) 
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride 

Over men's pity; 
Left play for work, and grappled with the world 45 

Bent on escaping: 
"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? 

Show me their shaping. 
Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage, — 

Give !" So he gowned him, SO 

Straight got by heart that book to its last page: 

Learned, we found him. 
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead. 

Accents uncertain : 
"Time to taste life," another would have said; 55 

"Up with the curtain !" 
This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? 

Patience a moment ! 
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, 

Still there 's the comment. 60 

Let me know all ! Prate not of most or least, 

Painful or easy! 
Even to the crumbs I 'd fain eat up the feast, 

Ay, nor feel queasy." 
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, 65 

When he had learned it. 
When he had gathered all books had to give! 

Sooner, he spurned it. 
Image the whole, then execute the parts — 

Fancy the fabric 70 

Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz. 

Ere mortar dab brick! 
(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place 

Gaping before us.) 
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace, 75 

(Hearten our chorus!) 
That before living he 'd learn how to live — 

No end to learning: 



ROBERT BROWNING 383 



Earn the means first — God surely will contrive 

Use for our earning. 80 

Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes: 

Live now or never !" 
He said, "What 's time ? Leave Now for dogs and apes ! 

Man has Forever." 
Back to his book then : deeper drooped his head ; 85 

Calculus racked him ; 
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead; 

Tussis attacked him. 
"Now, master, take a little rest !" — not he ! 

(Caution redoubled! 90 

Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!) 

Not a whit troubled, 
Back to his studies, fresher than at first. 

Fierce as a dragon 
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) 95 

Sucked at the flagon. 
Oh, if we draw a circle -premature. 

Heedless of far gain. 
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure 

Bad is our bargain ! lOO 

Was it not great? did not he throw on God — 

(He loves the burthen) — 
God's task to make the heavenly period 

Perfect the earthen? 
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear 105 

Just what it all meant? 
He would not discount life as fools do here. 

Paid by instalment. 
He ventured neck or nothing — heaven's success 

Found, or earth's failure: no 

"Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered, "Yes! 

Hence with life's pale lure!" 
That low man seeks a little thing to do. 

Sees it and does it : 
This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 115 

Dies ere he knows it. 
That low man goes on adding one to one; 

His hundred's soon hit: 



384 ENGLISH POEMS 



This high man, aiming at a million, 

Misses an unit. 120 

That has the world here — should he need the next, 

Let the world mind him. 
This throws himself on God, and, unperplexed. 

Seeking shall find him ! 
So, with the throttling hands of Death at strife, 125 

Ground he at grammar; 
Still, through the rattle, parts of speech were rife: 

While he could stammer 
He settled Hoti's business — let it be! 

Properly based Oun — 130 

Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De, 

Dead from the waist down. 
Well, here 's the platform, here 's the proper place : 

Hail to your purlieus. 
All ye highfliers of the feathered race, 135 

Swallows and curlews ! 
Here 's the top-peak ; the multitude below 

Live, for they can, there : 
This man decided not to Live but Know — 

Bury this man there? 140 

Here — here 's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, 

Lightnings are loosened. 
Stars come and go ! Let joy break with the storm, 

Peace let the dew send ! 
Lofty designs must close in like effects : 145 

Loftily lying. 
Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects. 

Living and dying. 

1855. 

PROSPICE 
Fear death? — to feel the fog in my throat. 

The mist in my face. 
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 

I am nearing the place. 
The power of the night, the press of the storm, S 

The post of the foe, 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, 

Yet the strong man must go; 



ROBERT BROWNING 385 

For the journey is done and the summit attained, 

And the barriers fall, lO 

Though a battle 's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, 

The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, 

The best and the last ! 
I would hate that Death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, 15 

And bade me creep past. 
No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, 

The heroes of old, 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 

Of pain, darkness, and cold. 20 

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 

The black minute 's at end. 
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave. 

Shall dwindle, shall blend. 
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, 25 

Then a light, then thy breast, 
O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again. 

And with God be the rest! 

1861. 1864. 



AMONG THE ROCKS 

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old Earth, 
This autumn morning! How he sets his bones 

To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet 

For the ripple to run over in its mirth. 

Listening the while where on the heap of stones 5 

The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. 

That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true; 

Such is life's trial, as old Earth smiles and knows. 
If you loved only what were worth your love. 
Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you : 10 

Make the low nature better by your throes ! 
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above! 

1864. 



386 ENGLISH POEMS 



ABT VOGLER 

AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORISING UPON THE MUSICAL INSTRU- 
MENT OF HIS INVENTION 

Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, 

Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, 
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon 
willed 

Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, 
Man, brute, reptile, fly, — alien of end and of aim, 5 

Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed, — 
Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, 

And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved! 

Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine. 

This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to 
raise ! 10 

Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now 
combine. 

Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise! 
And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell. 

Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things. 
Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, 15 

Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs. 

And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion 
he was. 

Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest. 
Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass, 

Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest; 20 

For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, 

When a great illumination surprises a festal night — 
Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire) 

Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul 
was in sight. 

In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's 
birth, 25 

Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I; 
And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the 
earth, 
As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky : 



ROBERT BROWNING 387 

Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine, 
Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star; 30 

Meteor-moons, balls of blaze : and they did not pale nor pine, 
For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor 
far. 

Nay more ; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow, 

Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast, 
Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, 35 

Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last; 
Or else the wonderful dead who have passed through the body 
and gone, 
But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth 
their new : 
What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon; 
And what is — shall I say, matched both? for I was made per- 
fect too. 40 

All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul, 
All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly 
forth, 
All through music and me ! For think, had I painted the whole. 
Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder- 
worth ; 
Had I written the same, made verse, — still, effect proceeds from 
cause, 45 

Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told; 
It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws. 
Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled. 

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the Will that can. 

Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are I SO 
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man, 

That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a 
star. 
Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is naught; 

It is everywhere in the world — loud, soft, and all is said : 
Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought — 55 

And there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the 
head! 



388 ENGLISH POEMS 



Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared; 

Gone ! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow ; 
For one is assured at first — one scarce can say that he feared. 

That he even gave it a thought — the gone thing was to go. 60 
Never to be again ! But many more of the kind 

As good, nay, better perchance: is this your comfort to me? 
To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind 

To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, 
shall be. 

Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name? 65 

Builder and maker. Thou, of houses not made with hands ! 
What, have fear of change from Thee Who art ever the same? 

Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power 
expands ? 
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as 
before ! 

The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; 70 

What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more : 

On the earth, the broken arcs ; in the heaven, a perfect round. 

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist; 

Not its semblance, but itself: no beauty, nor good, nor power 
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist 75 

When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard. 

The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky. 
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard : 

Enough that He heard it once; we shall hear it by and by. 80 

And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence 

For the fullness of the days ? Have we withered or agonised ? 
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue 
thence ? 

Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized? 
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear ; 85 

Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe: 
But God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear; 

The rest may reason, and welcome; 'tis we musicians know. 



ROBERT BROWNING 389 

Well, it is earth with me ; silence resumes her reign : 

I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. 90 

Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again, 

Sliding by semitones till I sink to the minor, — yes. 
And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground. 

Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep; 
Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found, 95 

The C Major of this life : so now I will try to sleep. 

1864. 

RABBI BEN EZRA 

Grow old along with me ! 
The best is yet to be, 

The last of life, for which the first was made : 
Our times are in His Hand 

Who saith, "A whole I planned; 5 

Youth shows but half: trust God, see all, nor be 
afraid !" 

Not that, amassing flowers. 
Youth sighed, "Which rose makes ours. 
Which lily leave and then as best recall?" 
Not that, admiring stars, 10 

It yearned, "Nor Jove, nor Mars ; 
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends 
them all!" 

Not for such hopes and fears 

Annulling youth's brief years. 

Do I remonstrate : folly wide the mark ! 15 

Rather I prize the doubt 

Low kinds exist without. 

Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark. 

Poor vaunt of life indeed, 

Were man but formed to feed 20 

On joy, to solely seek and find and feast: 
Such feasting ended, then 
As sure an end to men ; 

Irks care the crop-full bird? frets doubt the maw- 
crammed beast? 



39© 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Rejoice we are allied 25 

To That which doth provide 

And not partake, effect and not receive! 

A spark disturbs our clod; 

Nearer we hold of God 

Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must 

believe. 30 

Then welcome each rebuff 
That turns earth's smoothness rough, 
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go ! 
Be our joys three-parts pain! 

Strive, and hold cheap the strain; 35 

Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the 
throe ! 

For thence — a paradox 
Which comforts while it mocks — 
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail: 
What I aspired to be, 4° 

And was not, comforts me; 

A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' 
the scale. 

What is he but a brute 

Whose flesh hath soul to suit. 

Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play? 45 

To man propose this test — 

Thy body at its best. 

How far can that project thy soul on its lone way? 

Yet gifts should prove their use: 

I own the Past profuse So 

Of power each side, perfection every turn; 
Eyes, ears took in their dole, 
Brain treasured up the whole; 
Should not the heart beat once, "How good to live 
and learn"? 

Not once beat, "Praise be Thine! 55 

I see the whole design; 

I, who saw Power, see now Love perfect too: 
Perfect I call Thy plan ; 



ROBERT BROWNING 391 

Thanks that I was a man ! 

Maker, remake, complete, — I trust what Thou shalt 

do !" 60 

For pleasant is this flesh; 

Our soul, in its rose-mesh 

Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest: 

Would we some prize might hold 

To match those manifold 65 

Possessions of the brute, — gain most, as we did best ! 

Let us not always say, 
"Spite of this flesh to-day 

I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!" 
As the bird wings and sings, 70 

Let us cry, "All good things 

Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh 
helps soul !" 

Therefore I summon age 

To grant youth's heritage, 

Life's struggle having so far reached its term : 75 

Thence shall I pass, approved 

A man, for aye removed 

From the developed brute; a god though in the germ. 

And I shall thereupon 

Take rest, ere I be gone 80 

Once more on my adventure brave and new; 

Fearless and unperplexed. 

When I wage battle next, 

What weapons to select, what armour to indue. 

Youth ended, I shall try 85 

My gain or loss thereby; 

Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold. 

And I shall weigh the same, 

Give life its praise or blame : 

Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old. 90 

For note, when evening shuts, 

A certain moment cuts 

The deed off, calls the glory from the grey: 



392 ENGLISH POEMS 



A whisper from the west 

Shoots, "Add this to the rest, 95 

Take it and try its worth; here dies another day." 

So, still within this life, 
Though lifted o'er its strife. 
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last: 
"This rage was right i' the main, 100 

That acquiescence vain ; 
The Future I may face now I have proved the Past." 

For more is not reserved 
To man with soul just nerved 

To act to-morrow what he learns to-day: 105 

Here, work enough to watch 
The Master work, and catch 

Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true 
play. 

As it was better youth 

Should strive, through acts uncouth, no 

Toward making, than repose on aught found made; 
So better age, exempt 
From strife, should know, than tempt 
Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death, nor be 
afraid ! 

Enough now if the Right 115 

And Good and Infinite 

Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own, 
With knowledge absolute, 
Subject to no dispute 

From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel , 
alone. 120 

Be there, for once and all. 
Severed great minds from small. 
Announced to each his station in the Past ! 
Was I the world arraigned. 

Were they my soul disdained, 125 

Right ? Let age speak the truth and give us peace 
at last! 



ROBERT BROWNING 393 

Now, who shall arbitrate? 
Ten men love what I hate, 
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive; 
Ten who in ears and eyes 130 

Match me : we all surmise. 

They this thing, and I that; whom shall my soul 
believe ? 

Not on the vulgar mass 

Called "work" must sentence pass, 

Things done, that took the eye and had the price; 135 

O'er which, from level stand, 

The low world laid its hand. 

Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice. 

But all, the world's coarse thumb 

And finger failed to plumb, 140 

So passed in making up the main account; 
All instincts immature, 
All purposes unsure, 

That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's 
amount ; 

Thoughts hardly to be packed 145 

Into a narrow act. 

Fancies that broke through language and escaped; 

All I could never be, 

All, men ignored in me, — 

This I was worth to God, Whose wheel the pitcher 

shaped. 150 

Ay, note that potter's wheel. 
That metaphor ! and feel 

Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay, — 
Thou, to whom fools propound, 

When the wine makes its round, 155 

"Since life fleets, all is change, the Past gone, seize 
to-day !" 

Fool ! All that is, at all, 

Lasts ever, past recall; 

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure: 



394 ENGLISH POEMS 



What entered into thee, i6o 

That was, is, and shall be; 

Time's wheel runs back or stops, Potter and clay 
endure. 

He fixed thee 'mid this dance 

Of plastic circumstance. 

This Present thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest: 165 

Machinery just meant 

To give thy soul its bent. 

Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed. 

What though the earlier grooves. 

Which ran the laughing loves 170 

Around thy base, no longer pause and press? 

What though, about thy rim. 

Skull-things in order grim 

Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress? 

Look not thou down but up ! 175 

To uses of a cup — 

The festal board, lamp's flash, and trumpet's peal, 

The new wine's foaming flow, 

The Master's lips aglow ! 

Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou 

with earth's wheel? 180 

But I need, now as then. 

Thee, God, Who mouldest men : 

And since, not even while the whirl was worst, 

Did I — to the wheel of life 

With shapes and colors rife, 185 

Bound dizzily — mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst, 

So take and use Thy work; 
Amend what flaws may lurk, 

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim ! 
My times be in Thy hand! igo 

Perfect the cup as planned ! 

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the 
same! 

1864. 



ROBERT BROWNING 395 

WANTING IS— WHAT? 

Wanting is — what? 
Summer redundant, 
Blueness abundant, 
— Where is the blot? 

Beamy the world, j'^et a blank all the same, 5 

— Framework which waits for a picture to frame : 
What of the leafage, what of the flower? 
Roses embowering with naught they embower! 
Come then, complete incompletion, O comer. 
Pant through the blueness, perfect the summer ! 10 

Breathe but one breath 
Rose-beauty above. 
And all that was death 
Grows life, grows love. 

Grows love! IS 

1883. 



ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE 

One day, it thundered and lightened. 

Two women, fairly frightened. 

Sank to their knees, transformed, transfixed, 

At the feet of the man who sat betwixt; 

And "Mercy !" cried each, "if I tell the truth 5 

Of a passage in my youth !" 

Said This : "Do you mind the morning 

I met your love with scorning? 

As the worst of the venom left my lips, 

I thought, 'If, despite this lie, he strips 10 

The mask from my soul with a kiss, — I crawl 

His slave — soul, body, and all !' " 

Said That : "We stood to be married ; 

The priest, or some one, tarried; 

'If Paradise-door prove locked?' smiled you. 15 

I thought, as I nodded, smiling too, 

'Did one, that 's away, arrive, — nor late 

Nor soon should unlock Hell's gate !' " 



396 ENGLISH POEMS 



It ceased to lighten and thunder. 

Up started both in wonder, 20 

Looked round and saw that the sky was clear, 
Then laughed, "Confess you believed us, dear !" 
"I saw through the joke !" the man replied. 
They re-seated themselves beside. 

1883. 

SUMMUM BONUM 

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee ; 

All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem ; 
In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea; 
Breath and bloom, shade and shine, wonder, wealth, and — 
how far above them — 
Truth, that's brighter than gem, 5 

Trust, that 's purer than pearl, — 
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe, — all were for me 
In the kiss of one girl. 

1889. 

EPILOGUE 

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, 

When you set your fancies free. 
Will they pass to where — by death, fools think, imprisoned — 
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, 

— Pity me? 5 

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken ! 

What had I on earth to do 
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? 
Like the aimless, .helpless, hopeless did I drivel 

— Being — who ? 10 

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward. 

Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 

triumph. 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 

Sleep to wake 15 



ARTHUR HUGH C LOUGH 397 

No, at noon-day in the bustle of man's work-time 

Greet the unseen with a cheer ! 
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 
'Strive and thrive!" cry, "Speed, — fight on, fare ever 

There as here !" 20 

i88g 



ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 

SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NAUGHT AVAILETH 

Say not the struggle naught availeth. 
The labour and the wounds are vain, 

The enemy faints not, nor faileth. 

And as things have been they remain. 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; S 

It may be, in yon smoke concealed, 
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, 

And, but for you, possess the field. 

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking. 

Seem here no painful inch to gain, 10 

Far back, through creeks and inlets making. 
Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 

And not by eastern windows only. 

When daylight comes, comes in the light; 

In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, 15 

But westward, look, the land is bright. 
1849. 1862. 

THE LATEST DECALOGUE 

Thou shalt have one God only; who 

Would be at the expense of two ? 

No graven images may be 

Worshipped, except the currency : 

Swear not at all; for, for thy curse 5 

Thine enemy is none the worse : 

At church on Sunday to attend 

Will serve to keep the world thy friend : 



3g8 ENGLISH POEMS 



Honour thy parents; that is, all 

From whom advancement may befall : lo 

Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive 
Officiously to keep alive : 
Do not adultery commit; 
Advantage rarely comes of it : 

Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat, IS 

When it 's so lucrative to cheat : 
Bear not false witness; let the lie 
Have time on its own wings to fly: 
Thou shalt not covet; but tradition 
Approves all forms of competition. 20 

1862. 

HOPE EVERMORE AND BELIEVE 

Hope evermore and believe, O man, for e'en as thy thought 

So are the things that thou see'st, e'en as thy hope and belief. 
Cowardly art thou and timid? they rise to provoke thee against 
them; 

Hast thou courage? enough, see them exulting to yield. 
Yea, the rough rock, the dull earth, the wild sea's furying waters 5 

(Violent say'st thou and hard, mighty thou think'st to destroy), 
All with ineffable longing are waiting their Invader, 

All, with one varying voice, call to him, Come and subdue; 
Still for their Conqueror call, and but for the joy of being 
conquered 

(Rapture they will not forego) dare to resist and rebel; 10 

Still, when resisting and raging, in soft undervoice say unto him, 

Fear not, retire not, O man; hope evermore and believe. 
Go from the east to the west, as the sun and the stars direct thee. 

Go with the girdle of man, go and encompass the earth : 
Not for the gain of the gold, for the getting, the hoarding, the 

having ; 15 

But for the joy of the deed, but for the duty to do. 
Go with the spiritual life, the higher volition and action. 

With the great girdle of God, go and encompass the earth. 
Go; say not in thy heart. And what then were it accomplished. 

Were the wild impulse allayed, what were the use or the good ! 20 
Go; when the instinct is stilled, and when the deed is accom- 
plished. 

What thou hast done and shalt do shall be declared to thee 
then. 



ARTHUR HUGH C LOUGH 399 

Go with the sun and the stars, and yet evermore in thy spirit 
Say to thyself, It is good, yet is there better than it; 

This that I see is not all, and this that I do is but little; 25 

Nevertheless it is good, though there is better than it. 

1862. 

QUI LABORAT, ORAT 

O only Source of all our light and life, 

Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel, 

But Whom the hours of mortal moral strife 
Alone aright reveal! 

Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought, S 

Thy presence owns inefiFable, divine; 
Chastised each rebel, self-encentered thought, 

My will adoreth Thine. 

With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind 

Speechless remain, or speechless e'en depart; 10 

Nor seek to see — for what of earthly kind 
Can see Thee as Thou art? — 

If well-assured 'tis but profanely bold 

In thought's abstractest forms to seem to see. 

It dare not dare the dread communion hold IS 

In ways unworthy Thee, — 

O not unowned, Thou shalt unnamed forgive; 

In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare; 
And if in work its life it seem to live, 

Shalt make that work be prayer. 20 

Nor times shall lack when, while the work it plies, 
Unsummoned powers the blinding film shall part. 

And, scarce by happy tears made dim, the eyes 
In recognition start. 

But, as Thou wiliest, give or e'en forbear 25 

The beatific supersensual sight. 
So, with Thy blessing blest, that humbler prayer 

Approach Thee morn and night. 

1862. 



400 



ENGLISH POEMS 



"TMNOS "ATMNOS 

O Thou Whose image in the shrine 
Of human spirits dwells divine; 
Which from that precinct once conveyed, 
To be to outer day displayed, 

Doth vanish, part, and leave behind 5 

Mere blank and void of empty mind, 
Which wilful fancy seeks in vain 
With casual shapes to fill again! 

Thou That in our bosom's shrine 

Dost dwell, unknown because divine ! 10 

1 thought to speak, I thought to say, 
"The light is here," "behold the way," 
"The voice was thus," and "thus the word," 

And "thus I saw," and "that I heard;" 

But from the lips that half essayed IS 

The imperfect utterance fell unmade. 

Thou, in that mysterious shrine 
Enthroned, as I must say, divine ! 

1 will not frame one thought of what 

Thou mayest either be or not. 20 

I will not prate of "thus" and "so," 
And be profane with "yes" and "no." 
Enough that in our soul and heart. 
Thou, whatsoe'er Thou may'st be, art. 

Unseen, secure in that high shrine, 25 

Acknowledged present and divine, 

I will not ask some upper air. 

Some future day, to place Thee there; 

Nor say, nor yet deny, such men 

And women saw Thee thus and then, 30 

Thy name was such, and there or here 

To him or her Thou didst appear. 

Do only Thou in that dim shrine. 

Unknown or known, remain, divine; 

There, or if not, at least in eyes 35 

That scan the fact that round them lies, 



ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 401 

The hand to sway, the judgment guide, 
In sight and sense Thyself divide; 
Be Thou but there, — in soul and heart, 
I will not ask to feel Thou art. 40 

1862. 

FROM 

SONGS IN ABSENCE 

Come back, come back ! Behold with straining mast 
And swelling sail, behold her steaming fast; 
With one new sun to see her voyage o'er, 
With morning light to touch her native shore. 

Come back, come back. ' 5 

Come back, come back ! while westward labouring by, 
With sailless yards, a bare black hulk we fly. 
See how the gale we fight with sweeps her back, 
To our lost home, on our forsaken track. 

Come back, come back. 10 

Come back, come back ! Across the flying foam. 
We hear faint far-off voices call us home : 
"Come back," ye seem to say; "ye seek in vain; 
We went, we sought, and homeward turned again." 

Come back, come back. 15 

Come back, come back ! And whither back or why ? 
To fan quenched hopes, forsaken schemes to try; 
Walk the old fields ; pace the familiar street ; 
Dream with the idlers, with the bards compete. 

Come back, come back. 20 

Come back, come back ! And whither and for what ? 
To finger idly some old Gordian knot, 
Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave, 
And with much toil attain to half-believe. 

Come back, come back. 25 

Come back, come back ! Yea back, indeed, do go 
Sighs panting thick, and tears that want to flow; 
Fond fluttering hopes upraise their useless wings, 
And wishes idly struggle in the strings. 

Come back, come back. 30 



402 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Come back, come back ! More eager than the breeze, 
The flying fancies sweep across the seas; 
And lighter far than ocean's flying foam, 
The heart's fond message hurries to its home. 

Come back, come back. 35 

Come back, come back ! 

Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back; 
The long smoke wavers on the homeward track ; 
Back fly with winds things which the winds obey : 
The strong ship follows its appointed way. 40 

1852. 1862. 

'WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER 
SHADOW OF TURNING" 

It fortifies my soul to know 

That, though I perish, Truth is so; 

That, howsoe'er I stray and range, 

Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change. 

I steadier step when I recall 5 

That, if I slip. Thou dost not fall. 

1862. 

"PERCHE PENS A? PENSANDO S' INVECCHIA" 

To spend uncounted years of pain, 

Again, again, and yet again, 

In working out in heart and brain 

The problem of our being here; 
To gather facts from far and near, S 

Upon the mind to hold them clear, 
And, knowing more may yet appear. 
Unto one's latest breath to fear, 
The premature result to draw — 
Is this the object, end, and law, 10 

And purpose of our being here? 



BLESSED ARE THEY THAT HAVE NOT SEEN 

O happy they whose hearts receive 
The implanted word with faith; believe 
Because their fathers did before. 



ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 403 

Because they learnt, and ask no more. 

High triumphs of convictions wrought, 5 

And won by individual thought. 

The joy, delusive oft, but keen. 

Of having with our own eyes seen. 

What if they have not felt nor known? 

An amplitude instead they own, 10 

By no self-binding ordinance prest 

To toil in labour they detest; 

By no deceiving reasoning tied 

Or this or that way to decide. 

O happy they ! above their head IS 

The glory of the unseen is spread; 
Their happy heart is free to range 
Through largest tracts of pleasant change; 
Their intellects encradled lie 

In boundless possibility. 20 

For impulses of varying kinds 
The Ancient Home a lodging finds; 
Each appetite our nature breeds. 
It meets with viands for its needs. 

Oh happy they! nor need they fear 25 

The wordy strife that rages near; 
All reason wastes by day, and more. 
Will instinct in a night restore. 
O happy, so their state but give 

A clue by which a man can live; 30 

O blest, unless 't is proved by fact 
A dream impossible to act. 
1869. 

THE SHADOW 

I dreamed a dream ; I dreamt that I espied, 
Upon a stone that was not rolled aside, 
A Shadow sit upon a grave — a Shade, 
As thin, as unsubstantial, as of old 

Came, the Greek poet told, 5 

To lick the life-blood in the trench Ulysses made — 
As pale, as thin, and said : 
"I am the Resurrection of the Dead. 



404 ENGLISH POEMS 



The night is past, the morning is at hand, 

And I must in my proper semblance stand, lo 

Appear brief space and vanish ; — listen ! this is true : 

I am that Jesus whom they slew." 

And shadows dim, I dreamed, the dead apostles came, 
And bent their heads for sorrow and for shame — 
Sorrow for their great loss, and shame 15 

For what they did in that vain name. 

And in long ranges far behind there seemed 
Pale; vapoury, angel forms — or was it cloud ? — that kept 
Strange watch ; the women also stood beside and wept. 

And Peter spoke the word : 20 

"O my own Lord, 
What is it we must do? 
Is it then all untrue? 

Did we not see, and hear, and handle thee, 
Yea, for whole hours 25 

Upon the Mount in Galilee, 
On the lake shore, and here at Bethany, 
When thou ascendedst to thy God and ours?" 

And paler still became the distant cloud. 
And at the word the women wept aloud. 30 

And the Shade answered, "What ye say I know not; 
But it is true 

I am that Jesus whom they slew, 
Whom ye have preached, but in what way I know not." 
*********** 

And the great World, it chanced, came by that way, 35 

And stopped, and looked, and spoke to the police, 

And said the thing, for order's sake and peace, 

Most certainly must be suppressed, the nuisance cease. 

His wife and daughter must have where to pray, 

And whom to pray to, at the least one day 40 

In seven, and something sensible to say. 

Whether the fact so many years ago 

Had, or not, happened, how was he to know? 

Yet he had always heard that it was so. 

As for himself, perhaps it was all one; 45 

And yet he found it not unpleasant, too, 

On Sunday morning in the roomy pew, 

To see the thing with such decorum done. 



ARTHUR HUGH C LOUGH 405 

As for himself, perhaps it was all one; 

Yet on one's death-bed, all men always said, 50 

It was a comfortable thing to think upon 

The atonement and the resurrection of the dead. 

So the great World, as having said his say. 

Unto his country-house pursued his way. 

And on the grave the Shadow sat all day. 55 

********* 

And the poor Pope was sure it must be so, 
Else wherefore did the people kiss his toe? 
The subtle Jesuit cardinal shook his head. 
And mildly looked and said 

It mattered not a jot 60 

Whether the thing, indeed, were so or not ; 
Religion must be kept up, and the Church preserved, 
And for the people this best served. 
And then he turned, and added most demurely, 
"Whatever may befal, 65 

We Catholics need no evidence at all. 
The holy father is infallible, surely !" 

And English canons heard, 
And quietly demurred. 

Religion rests on evidence, of course, 70 

And on inquiry we must put no force. 
Difficulties still, upon whatever ground, 
Are likely, almost certain, to be found. 
The Theist scheme, the Pantheist, one and all, 
Must with, or e'en before, the Christian fall. 75 

And till the thing were plainer to our eyes. 
To disturb faith was surely most unwise. 
As for the Shade, who trusted such narration? — 
Except, of course, in ancient revelation. 

And dignitaries of the Church came by. 80 

It had been worth to some of them, they said, 
Some hundred thousand pounds a year a head. 
If it fetched so much in the market, truly, 
'T was not a thing to be given up unduly. 
It had been proved by Butler in one way, 85 

By Paley better in a later day; 
It had been proved in twenty ways at once, 
By many a doctor plain to many a dunce; 



406 ENGLISH POEMS 



There was no question but it must be so. 

And the Shade answered that he did not know ; 90 

He had no reading, and might be deceived, 
But still he was the Christ, as he believed. 

And women, mild and pure. 
Forth from still homes and village schools did pass, 
And asked, if this indeed were thus, alas, 95 

What should they teach their children and the poor? 

The Shade replied he could not know, 
But it was truth, the fact was so. 

Who had kept all commandments from his youth 

Yet still found one thing lacking — even Truth : 100 

And the Shade only answered, "Go, make haste, 

Enjoy thy great possessions as thou may'st." 

1869. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

TO A FRIEND 

Who prop, thou ask'st, in these bad days, my mind? 
He much, the old man, who, clearest-souled of men, 
Saw The Wide Prospect, and the Asian Fen, 
And Tmolus hill, and Smyrna bay, though blind. 

Much he, whose friendship I not long since won, 5 

That halting slave, who in Nicopolis 

Taught Arrian, when Vespasian's brutal son 

Cleared Rome of what most shamed him. But be his 

My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul, 

From first youth tested up to extreme old age, 10 

Business could not make dull, nor passion wild; 

Who saw life steadily, and saw it whole; 
The mellow glory of the Attic stage, 
Singer of sweet Colonus, and its child. 

1849. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 407 

SHAKESPEARE 

Others abide our question. Thou art free. 
We ask and ask — thou smilest and art still, 
Out-topping knowledge : for the loftiest hill, 
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty, 

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, 5 

Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place. 
Spares but the cloudy border of his base 
To the foiled searching of mortality; 

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, 
Self-schooled, self-scanned, self-honoured, self-secure, 10 

Didst tread on earth unguessed at. — Better so ! 

All pains the immortal spirit must endure, 

All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow, 

Find their sole speech in that victorious brow. 

1849. 

THE FORSAKEN MERMAN 

Come, dear children, let us away; 

Down and away below ! 

Now my brothers call from the bay. 

Now the great winds shoreward blow, 

Now the salt tides seaward flow, 5 

Now the wild white horses play, "^ 

Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. 

Children dear, let us away ! 

This way, this way! 

Call her once before you go — lO 

Call once yet, 

In a voice that she will know : 
"Margaret ! Margaret !" 

Children's voices should be dear 

(Call once more) to a mother's ear; 15 

Children's voices, wild with pain — 

Surely she will come again ! 

Call her once and come away; 

This way, this way ! 
"Mother dear, we cannot stay! 20 



4o8 ENGLISH POEMS 



The wild white horses foam and fret." 

Margaret ! Margaret ! 

Come, dear children, come away down; 

Call no more ! 

One last look at the white-walled town, 25 

And the little grey church on the windy shore; 

Then come down ! 

She will not come though you call all day; 

Come away, come away! 

Children dear, was it yesterday • 30 

We heard the sweet bells over the bay? 
In the caverns where we lay. 
Through the surf and through the swell, 
The far-off sound of a silver bell? 

Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep, 35 

Where the winds are all asleep, 
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam. 
Where the salt weed sways in the stream. 
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round. 
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground, 40 

Where the sea-snakes coil and twine, 
Dry their mail and bask in the brine. 
Where great whales come sailing by. 
Sail and sail, with unshut eye. 

Round the world for ever and aye? 45 

When did music come this way? 
Children dear, was it yesterday? 
Children dear, was it yesterday 
(Call yet once) that she -went away? 

Once she sate with you and me, 50 

On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea, . 
And the youngest sate on her knee. 
She combed its bright hair, and she tended it well. 
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell. 
She sighed, she looked up through the clear green sea; 55 
She said : "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray 
In the little grey church on the shore to-day. 
'T will be Easter-time in the world — ah me ! 
And I lose my poor soul, merman ! here with thee." 
i. said : "Go up, dear heart, through the waves ; 60 

Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves !" 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 409 

She smiled, she went up through the surf in the bay. 

Children dear, was it yesterday? 

Children dear, were we long alone? 
"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan; 6$ 

Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say; 

Come !" I said ; and we rose through the surf in the bay. 

We went up the beach, by the sandy down 

Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-walled town; 

Through the narrow paved streets, where all was still, 70 

To the little grey church on the windy hill. 

From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers, 

But we stood without in the cold blowing airs. 

We climbed on the graves, on the stones worn with rains. 

And we gazed up the aisle through the small leaded panes. 75 

She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear: 
"Margaret, hist ! come quick, we are here ! 

Dear heart !" I said, "we are long alone ; 

The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan." 

But, ah, she gave me never a look, 80 

For her eyes were sealed to the holy book ! 

Loud prays the priest; shut stands the door. 

Come away, children, call no more ! 

Come away, come down, call no more ! 

Down, down, down ! 85 

Down to the depths of the sea ! 

She sits at her wheel in the humming town, 

Singing most joyfully. 

Hark what she sings : "O joy, O joy, 

For the humming street, and the child with its toy! 90 

For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well ; 

For the wheel where I spun. 

And the blessed light of the sun !" 

And so she sings her fill, 

Singing most joyfully, 95 

Till the spindle drops from her hand, 

And the whizzing wheel stands still. 

She steals to the window, and looks at the sand, 

And over the sand at the sea; 

And her eyes are set in a stare; lOO 

And anon there breaks a sigh, 

And anon there drops a tear. 



4IO ENGLISH POEMS 



From a sorrow-clouded eye, 

And a heart sorrow-laden, — 

A long, long sigh 105 

For the cold strange eyes of a little mermaiden 

And the gleam of her golden hair. 

Come away, away, children; 
Come, children, come down ! 

The hoarse wind blows coldly; 1 10 

Lights shine in the town. 
She will start from her slumber 
When gusts shake the door; 
She will hear the winds howling. 

Will hear the waves roar. 115 

We shall see, while above us 
The waves roar and whirl, 
A ceiling of amber, 
A pavement of pearl, 

Singing, "Here came a mortal, 120 

But faithless was she ! 
And alone dwell forever 
The kings of the sea." 

But, children, at midnight. 
When soft the winds blow, 125 

When clear falls the moonlight. 
When spring-tides are low ; 
When sweet airs come seaward 
From heaths starred with broom. 

And high rocks throw mildly 130 

On the blanched sands a gloom ; 
Up the still, glistening beaches. 
Up the creeks we will hie. 
Over banks of bright seaweed 

The ebb-tide leaves dry. 135 

We will gaze, from the sand-hills. 
At the white, sleeping town, 
At the church on the hill-side. 
And then come back down, 

Singing, "There dwells a loved one, 140 

But cruel is she ! 
She left lonely forever 
The kings of the sea." 

1849. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 411 

SELF-DEPENDENCE 

Weary of myself, and sick of asking 
What I am and what I ought to be, 
At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me 
Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea. 

And a look of passionate desire 5 

O'er the sea and to the stars I send : 
"Ye who from my childhood up have calmed me, 
Calm me, ah, compose me to the end ! 

"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, 
On my heart your mighty charm renew; 10 

Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you. 
Feel my soul becoming vast like you !" 

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, 
Over the lit sea's unquiet way. 

In the rustling night-air came the answer: 15 

"Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they. 

"Unaffrighted by the silence round them, 
Undistracted by the sights they see, 
These demand not that the things without them 
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. 20 

"And with joy the stars perform their shining, 
And the sea its long moon-silvered roll; 
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting 
All the fever of some differing soul. 

"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful 25 

In what state God's other works may be. 
In their own tasks all their powers pouring, 
These attain the mighty life you see." 

O air-born voice! long since, severely clear, 
A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear: 30 

"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he 
Who finds himself loses his misery!" 

1852. 



412 ENGLISH POEMS 



THE FUTURE 

A wanderer is man from his birth. 

He was born in a ship 

On the breast of the river of Time; 

Brimming with wonder and joy 

He spreads out his arms to the light, 5 

Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream. 

As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been. 
Whether he wakes 

Where the snowy mountainous pass, 
Echoing the screams of the eagles, 10 

Hems in its gorges the bed 
Of the new-born, clear-flowing stream; 
Whether he first sees light 
Where the river in gleaming rings 

Sluggishly winds through the plain; 15 

Whether in sound of the swallowing sea, — 
As is the world on the banks. 
So is the mind of the man. 

Vainly does each, as he glides, 
Fable and dream 20 

Of the lands which the river of Time 
Had left ere he woke on its breast. 
Or shall reach when his eyes have been closed. 
Only the tract where he sails 

He wots of; only the thoughts 25 

Raised by the objects he passes, are his. 

Who can see the green earth any more 
As she was by the sources of Time? 
Who imagines her fields as they lay 
In the sunshine, unworn by the plough? 30 

Who thinks as they thought. 
The tribes who then roamed on her breast. 
Her vigorous, primitive sons? 

What girl 
Now reads in her bosom as clear 35 

As Rebekah read, when she sate 
At eve by the palm-shaded well? 
Who guards in her breast 
As deep, as pellucid a spring 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 413 

Of feeling, as tranquil, as sure? 40 

What bard, 
At the height of his vision, can deem 
Of God, of the world, of the soul. 
With a plainness as near, 

As flashing, as Moses felt 45 

When he lay in the night by his flock 
On the starlit Arabian waste? 
Can rise and obey 
The beck of the Spirit, like him? 

This tract which the river Time $0 

Now flows through with us, is the plain. 
Gone is the calm of its earlier shore. 
Bordered by cities and hoarse 
With a thousand cries is its stream. 
And we on its breast, our minds 55 

Are confused as the cries which we hear, 
Changing and shot as the sights which we see. 

And we say that repose has fled 
Forever the course of the river of Time. 
That cities will crowd to its edge 60 

In a blacker, incessanter line; 
That the din will be more on its banks, 
Denser the trade on its stream, 
Flatter the plain where it flows. 

Fiercer the sun overhead. 6$ 

That never will those on its breast 
See an ennobling sight. 
Drink of the feeling of quiet again. 

But what was before us we know not. 
And we know not what shall succeed. 70 

Haply, the river of Time — 
As it grows, as the towns on its marge 
Fling their wavering lights 
On a wider, statelier stream — 

May acquire, if not the calm 75 

Of its early mountainous shore, 
Yet a solemn peace of its own. 
And the width of the waters, the hush 
Of the grey expanse where he floats. 
Freshening its current and spotted with foam 80 



414 ENGLISH POEMS 



As it draws to the ocean, may strike 

Peace to the soul of the man on its breast — 

As the pale waste widens around him, 

As the banks fade dimmer away, 

As the stars come out, and the night-wind 85 

Brings up the stream 

Murmurs and scents of the Infinite Sea. 

1852. 



LINES 

WRITTEN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS 

In this lone, open glade I lie, 

Screened by deep boughs on either hand; 

And at its end, to stay the eye, 

Those black-crowned, red-boled pine-trees stand. 

Birds here make song, each bird has his, $ 

Across the girdling city's hum. 

How green under the boughs it is ! 

How thick the tremulous sheep-cries come ! 

Sometimes a child will cross the glade 

To take his nurse his broken toy; 10 

Sometimes a thrush flit overhead. 

Deep in her unknown day's employ. 

Here at my feet what wonders pass. 

What endless, active life is here! 

What blowing daisies, fragrant grass — 15 

An air-stirred forest, fresh and clear. 

Scarce fresher is the mountain-sod 

Where the tired angler lies, stretched out. 

And, eased of basket and of rod. 

Counts his day's spoil, the spotted trout. 20 

In the huge world, which roars hard by, 

Be others happy if they can! 

But in my helpless cradle I 

Was breathed on by the rural Pan. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 415 



I, on men's impious uproar, hurled, 25 

Think often, as I hear them rave, 
That peace has left the upper world 
And now keeps only in the grave. 

Yet here is peace forever new: 

When I who watch them am away, 30 

Still all things in this glade go through 

The changes of their quiet day. 

Then to their happy rest they pass: 

The flowers upclose, the birds are fed, 

The night comes down upon the grass, 35 

The child sleeps warmly in his bed. 

Calm soul of all things ! make it mine 

To feel, amid the city's jar, 

That there abides a peace of thine 

Man did not make and cannot mar. 40 

The will to neither strive nor cry. 
The power to feel with others, give! 
Calm, calm me more; nor let me die 
Before I have begun to live! 

1852. 



THE SCHOLAR GIPSY 

Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill; 
Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes ! 

No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed, 
Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats, 

Nor the cropped herbage shoot another head. 5 

But when the fields are still. 
And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest. 

And only the white sheep are sometimes seen 

Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanched green, 
Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest ! 10 

Here, where the reaper was at work of late — 
In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves 
His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse, 



41 6 ENGLISH POEMS 



And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves, 

Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use, — 15 
Here will I sit and wait. 

While to my ear from uplands far away 
The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, 
With distant cries of reapers in the corn — 

All the live murmur of a summer's day. 20 

Screened is this nook o'er the high, half-reaped field, 
And here till sun-down, shepherd, will I be. 

Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep. 
And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see 

Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep; 25 

And air-swept lindens yield 
Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers. 

Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid. 

And bower me from the August sun with shade ; 
And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers. 30 

And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book — 
Come, let me read the oft-read tale again ! 

The story of the Oxford scholar poor. 
Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain. 

Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door, 35 

One summer-morn forsook 
His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore, 

And roamed the world with that wild brotherhood, 

And came, as most men deemed, to little good, 
But came to Oxford and his friends no more. 40 

But once, years after, in the country lanes. 
Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew, 
Met him, and of his way of life enquired ; 
Whereat he answered that the gipsy-crew, 

His mates, had arts to rule as they desired 45 

The workings of men's brains. 
And they can bind them to what thoughts they will. 
"And I," he said, "the secret of their art. 
When fully learned, will to the world impart; 
But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill." 50 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 417 

This said, he left them, and returned no more. — 
But rumours hung about the country-side. 

That the lost scholar long was seen to stray. 
Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied. 

In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey, 55 

The same the gipsies wore. 
Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring; 

At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors, 

On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frocked boors 
Had found him seated at their entering, 60 

But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly. 
And I myself seem half to know thy looks, 

And put the shepherds, wanderer ! on thy trace ; 
And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks 

I ask if thou hast passed their quiet place; 65 

Or in my boat I lie 
Moored to the cool bank in the summer-heats, 

'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills. 

And watch the warm, green-muffled Cumner hills, 
And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats. 70 

For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground : 
Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe. 

Returning home on summer-nights, have met, 
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe, 

Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, 75 

As the punt's rope chops round, 
And leaning backward in a pensive dream. 

And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers 

Plucked in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers. 
And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream. 80 

And then they land, and thou art seen no more !— 
Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come 
To dance around the Fyfield elm in May, 
Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam. 
Or cross a stile into the public way. 85 

Oft thou hast given them store 



41 8 ■ ENGLISH POEMS 



Of flowers — the frail-leafed, white anemone, 

Dark bluebells drenched with dews of summer eves, 
And purple orchises with spotted leaves, — 

But none hath words she can report of thee. 90 

And above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time 's here 
In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames, 

Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass, 
Where black-winged swallows haunt the glittering 
Thames, 
To bathe in the abandoned lasher pass, 95 

Have often passed thee near, 
Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown ; 

Marked thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare. 
Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air — 
But when they came from bathing, thou wast gone ! 100 

At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills. 
Where at her open door the housewife darns. 
Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate 
To watch the threshers in the mossy barns. 

Children, who early range these slopes, and late, 105 
For cresses from the rills, 
Have known thee eying, all an April day. 

The springing pastures and the feeding kine ; 
And marked thee, when the stars come out and 
shine, 
Through the long dewy grass move slow away. no 

In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood — 

Where most the gipsies by the turf-edged way 

Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see 
With scarlet patches tagged and shreds of grey. 

Above the forest-ground called Thessaly, — 115 

The blackbird, picking food. 
Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all. 

So often has he known thee past him stray, 

Rapt, twirling in thy hand a withered spray, 
And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall. 120 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 419 



And once, in winter, on the causeway chill. 

Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go, 

Have I not passed thee on the wooden bridge. 
Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow, 

Thy face tow'rd Hinksey and its wintry ridge? 125 
And thou hast climbed the hill, 
And gained the white brow of the Cumner range ; 
Turned once to watch, while thick the snowflakes 

fall. 
The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall- 
Then sought thy straw in some sequestered grange. 130 

But what— I dream ! Two hundred years are flown 
Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls, 

And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe 
That thou wert wandered from the studious walls 

To learn strange arts and join a gipsy-tribe; 135 
And thou from earth art gone 
Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid — 

Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave 

Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave, 
Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade. 140 

—No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours ! 
For what wears out the life of mortal men? 

'T is that from change to change their being rolls ; 
'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, 

Exhaust the energy of strongest souls, 145 

And numb the elastic powers; 
Till, having used our nerves with bliss and teen. 

And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit. 

To the just-pausing Genius we remit 
Our worn-out life, and are — what we have been. 150 

Thou hast not lived, why should'st thou perish, so? 
Thou hadst one aim, one business, oiis desire; 

Else wert thou long since numbered with the dead ! 
Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire! 

The renerations of thy peers are fled, 155 

And we ourselves shall go; 



420 



ENGLISH POEMS 



But thou possessest an immortal lot, 

And we imagine thee exempt from age 
And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page, 

Because thou hadst — ^what we, alas ! have not. i6o 

For early didst thou leave the world, with powers 
Fresh, undiverted to the world without. 

Firm to their mark, not spent on other things; 
Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt 

Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, 

brings. 165 

O life unlike to ours ! 
Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, 

Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he 

strives, 
And each half lives a hundred different lives ; 
Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope. 170 

Thou waitest for the spark from heaven ! and we, 
Light half-believers of our casual creeds. 

Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed. 
Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds. 

Whose vague resolves never have been fulfilled; 175 
For whom each j'ear we see 
Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; 

Who hesitate and falter life away. 

And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day, — 
Ah, do not we, wanderer ! await it too ? 180 

Yes, we await it! — but it still delays. 

And then we suffer ! and amongst us one, 

Who most has suffered, takes dejectedly 
His seat upon the intellectual throne; 

And all his store of sad experience he l8s 

Lays bare of wretched days ; 
Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs, 

And how the dying spark of hope was fed. 

And how the breast was soothed, and how the head, 
And all his hourly varied anodynes. 190 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 421 

This for our wisest ! and we others pine, 

And wish the long unhappy dream would end, 

And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear, 

With close-lipped patience for our only friend. 

Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair — 195 
But none has hope like thine ! 
Thou through the fields and through the woods dost 
stray, 
Roaming the country-side, a truant boy. 
Nursing thy project in unclouded joy. 
And every doubt long blown by time away. 200 

O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, 
And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames ; 

Before this strange disease of modern life, 
With its sick hurry, its divided aims. 

Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts, was rife — 205 
Fly hence, our contact fear ! 
Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood ! 

Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern 

From her false friend's approach in Hades turn. 
Wave us away, and keep thy solitude ! 210 

Still nursing the unconquerable hope. 
Still clutching the inviolable shade, 

With a free, onward impulse brushing through. 
By night, the silvered branches of the glade — 

Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue, 215 

On some mild pastoral slope 
Emerge, and, resting on the moonlit pales, 

Freshen thy flowers as in former years 

With dew, or listen with enchanted ears. 
From the dark dingles, to the nightingales ! 220 

But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly ! 
For strong the infec'ion of our mental strife. 

Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest ; 
And we should win thee from thy own fair life, 

Like us distracted, and like us unblest. 225 

Soon, soon thy cheer would dk. 



422 ENGLISH POEMS 



Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed thy powers, 
And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made; 
And then thy glad perennial youth would fade, 
Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours. 230 

Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles! 
— As some grave Tyrian trader from the sea, 

Descried at sunrise an emerging prow 
Lifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily. 

The fringes of a southward-facing brow 235 

Among the ^gaean isles ; 
And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, 

Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, 

Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine — 
And knew the intruders on his ancient home, 240 

The young, light-hearted masters of the waves — 
And snatched his rudder, and shook out more sail 

And day and night held on indignantly 
O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale, 

Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, 245 

To where the Atlantic raves 
Outside the western straits ; and unbent sails 

There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets 

of foam, 
Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come; 
And on the beach undid his corded bales. 250 

1853- 

YES ! IN THE SEA OF LIFE ENISLED 

Yes ! in the sea of life enisled. 

With echoing straits between us thrown, 

Dotting the shoreless watery wild, 

We mortal millions live alone. 

The islands feel the enclasping flow, 5 

And then their endless bounds they know. 

But when the moon their hollows lights, 
And they are swept by balms of spring. 
And in their glens, on starry nights. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 423 

The nightingales divinely sing, 10 

And lovely notes, from shore to shore, 
Across the sounds and channels pour, — 

Oh, then a longing like, despair 

Is to their farthest caverns sent; 

For surely once, they feel, we were IS 

Parts of a single continent ! 

Now round us spreads the watery plain — 

Oh might our marges meet again ! 

Who ordered that their longing's fire 

Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled? 20 

Who renders vain their deep desire? 

A god, a god their severance ruled ! 

And bade betwixt their shores to be 

The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea- 

1853. 

STANZAS FROM THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE 

Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused 

With rain, where thick the crocus blows, 

Past the dark forges long disused. 

The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes. 

The bridge is crossed, and slow we ride, S 

Through forest, up the mountain-side. 

The autumnal evening darkens round; 

The wind is up, and drives the rain ; 

While, hark ! far down, with strangled sound 

Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain, 10 

Where that wet smoke, among the woods, 

Over his boiling cauldron broods. 

Swift rush the spectral vapours white 

Past limestone scars with ragged pines. 

Showing — then blotting from our sight ! 15 

Halt — through the cloud-drift something shines ! 

High in the valley, wet and drear. 

The huts of Courrerie appear. 



424 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Strike leftward! cries our guide; and higher 

Mounts up the stony forest-way. 20 

At last the encircling trees retire ; 

Look ! through the showery twilight grey 

What pointed roofs are these advance? — 

A palace of the kings of France? 

Approach, for what we seek is here ! 2$ 

Alight, and sparely sup, and wait 

For rest in this outbuilding near ; 

Then cross the sward and reach that gate; 

Knock ; pass the wicket ! Thou art come 

To the Carthusians' world-famed home. 30 

The silent courts — where night and day 

Into their stone-carved basins cold 

The splashing icy fountains play, — 

The humid corridors behold. 

Where, ghostlike in the deepening night, 35 

Cowled forms brush by in gleaming white! 

The chapel, where no organ's peal 

Invests the stern and naked prayer ! — 

With penitential cries they kneel 

And wrestle; rising then, with bare 40 

And white uplifted faces stand. 

Passing the Host from hand to hand : 

Each takes, and then his visage wan 

Is buried in his cowl once more. 

The cells ! — the suffering Son of Man 45 

Upon the wall — the knee-worn floor — 

And where they sleep, that wooden bed. 

Which shall their coffin be, when dead! 

The library, where tract and tome 

Not to feed priestly pride are there, SO 

To hymn the conquering march of Rome, 

Nor yet to amuse, as ours are; 

They paint of souls the inner strife. 

Their drops of blood, their death in life. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 425 

The garden, overgrown yet mild, — 55 

See, fragrant herbs are flowering there ! 

Strong children of the Alpine wild 

Whose culture is the brethren's care; 

Of human tasks their only one. 

And cheerful works beneath the sun. 60 

Those halls, too, destined to contain 

Each its own pilgrim-host of old. 

From England, Germany, or Spain — 

All are before me ! I behold 

The House, the Brotherhood austere! — 65 

And what am I, that I am here? 

For rigorous teachers seized my youth, 

And purged its faith, and trimmed its fire; 

Showed me the high, white star of Truth, 

There bade me gaze, and there aspire. 70 

Even now their whispers pierce the gloom: 

What dost thou in this living tomb? 

Forgive me, masters of the mind, 

At whose behest I long ago 

So much unlearnt, so much resigned. 75 

I come not here to be your foe; 

I seek these anchorites, not in ruth, 

To curse and to deny your truth. 

Not as their friend or child I speak; 

But as, on some far northern strand, 80 

Thinking of his own gods, a Greek 

In pity and mournful awe might stand 

Before some fallen Runic stone — 

For both were faiths, and both are gone. 

Wandering between two worlds, one dead, 85 

The other powerless to be born, 

With nowhere yet to rest my head. 

Like these, on earth I wait forlorn. 

Their faith, my tears, the world deride — 

I come to shed them at their side. 90 



426 ENGLISH POEMS 



Oh, hide me in your gloom profound, 

Ye solemn seats of holy pain ! 

Take me, cowled forms, and fence me round, 

Till I possess my soul again; 

Till free my thoughts before me roll, 95 

Not chafed by hourly false control ! 

For the world cries your faith is now 

But a dead time's exploded dream ; 

My melancholy, sciolists say, 

Is a passed mode, an outworn theme, — loo 

As if the world had ever had 

A faith, or scioHsts been sad! 

Ah, if it he passed, take away, 

At least, the restlessness, the pain ! 

Be man henceforth no more a prey 105 

To these out-dated stings again ! 

The nobleness of grief is gone — 

Ah, leave us not the fret alone ! 

But if you cannot give us ease — 

Last of the race of them who grieve, — no 

Here leave us to die out with these. 

Last of the people who believe ! 

Silent, while years engrave the brow; 

Silent — the best are silent now. 

Achilles ponders in his tent, 115 

The kings of modern thought are dumb; 

Silent they are, though not content, 

And wait to see the future come. 

They have the grief men had of yore. 

But they contend and cry no more. 120 

Our fathers watered with their tears 

This sea of Time whereon we sail; 

Their voices were in all men's ears 

Who passed within their puissant hail. 

Still the same ocean round us raves, 125 

But we stand mute and watch the waves. 



MATTHEW- ARNOLD 427 



For what availed it, all the noise 

And outcry of the former men? 

Say, have their sons achieved more joys? 

Say, is life lighter now than then? 130 

The sufferers died, they left their pain— 

The pangs which tortured them remain. 

What helps it now that Byron bore, 

With haughty scorn which mocked the smart, 

Through Europe to the ^tolian shore 13S 

The pageant of his bleeding heart? 

That thousands counted every groan, 

And Europe made his woe her own? 

What boots it, Shelley, that the breeze 

Carried thy lovely wail away, 140 

Musical through Italian trees 

Which fringe thy soft blue Spezzian bay? 

Inheritors of thy distress, 

Have restless hearts one throb the less? 

Or are we easier to have read, 14S 

Oh Obermann, the sad, stern page, 

Which tells us how thou hidd'st thy head 

From the fierce tempest of thine age. 

In the lone brakes of Fontainebleau, 

Or chalets near the Alpine snow? 150 

Ye slumber in your silent grave ! — 

The world, which for an idle day 

Grace to your mood of sadness gave. 

Long since hath flung her weeds away. 

The eternal trifler breaks your spell ; 155 

But we — we learnt your lore too well ! 

Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age, 

More fortunate, alas, than we. 

Which without hardness will be sage. 

And gay without frivolity. 160 

Sons of the world, oh, speed those years; 

But while we wait, allow our tears ! 



428 ENGLISH POEMS 



Allow them ! We admire with awe 

The exulting thunder of your race; 

You give the universe your law, 165 

You triumph over time and space ! 

Your pride of life, your tireless powers, 

We laud them, but they are not ours. 

We are like children reared in shade 

Beneath some old-world abbey wall, 170 

Forgotten in a forest-glade, 

And secret from the eyes of all. 

Deep, deep the greenwood round them waves. 

Their abbey, and its close of graves. 

But, where the road runs near the stream, 175 

Oft through the trees they catch a glance 

Of passing troops in the sun's beam — 

Pennon, and plume, and flashing lance ! 

Forth to the world those soldiers fare, 

To life, to cities, and to war ! 180 

And through the wood, another way, 

Faint bugle-notes from far are borne, 

Where hunters gather, staghounds bay, 

Round some fair forest-lodge at morn. 

Gay dames are there, in sylvan green; 185 

Laughter and cries, those notes between ! 

The banners flashing through the trees 

Make their blood dance and chain their eyes; 

That bugle-music on the breeze 

Arrests them with a charmed surprise. 190 

Banner by turns and bugle woo : 

Ye shy recluses, follow too! 

O children, what do ye reply? — 
"Action and Pleasure, will ye roam 
Through these secluded dells to cry 195 

And call us? — but too late ye come! 
Too late for us your call ye blow, 
Whose bent was taken long ago. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 429 

"Long since we pace this shadowed nave; 
We watch those yellow tapers shine, 200 

Emblems of hope over the grave, 
In the high altar's depth divine. 
The organ carries to our ear 
Its accents of another sphere. 

"Fenced early in this cloistral round 205 

Of reverie, of shade, of prayer. 
How should we grow in other ground? 
How can we flower in foreign air? 
— Pass, banners, pass ; and bugles, cease ; 
And leave our desert to its peace!" 210 

1855. 

DOVER BEACH 

The sea is calm to-night. 

The tide is full, the moon lies fair 

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light 

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, 

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. 5 

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! 

Only, from the long line of spray 

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land, 

Listen ! you hear the grating roar 

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, 10 

At their return, up the high strand. 

Begin, and cease, and then again begin. 

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring 

The eternal note of sadness in. 

Sophocles long ago IS 

Heard it on the Mgtan, and it brought 
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow 
Of human misery; we 
Find also in the sound a thought. 
Hearing it by this distant northern sea. 20 

The sea of faith 
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore 
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. 
But now I only hear 



430 ENGLISH POEMS 



Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 25 

Retreating, to the breath 

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear 

And naked shingles of the world. 

Ah, love, let us be true 
To one another ! for the world which seems 30 

To lie before us like a land of dreams, 
So various, so beautiful, so new. 
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light. 
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; 
And we are here as on a darkling plain 35 

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, 
Where ignorant armies clash by night. 

1867. 

PALLADIUM 

Set where the upper streams of Simois flow, 
Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood; 
And Hector was in Ilium, far below. 
And fought, and saw it not — but there it stood! 

It stood, and sun and moonshine rained their light 5 

On the pure columns of its glen-built hall. 
Backward and forward rolled the waves of fight 
Round Troy — but while this stood, Troy could not fall. 

So, in its lovely moonlight, lives the soul. 

Mountains surround it, and sweet virgin air; 10 

Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll; 

We visit it by moments, ah, too rare ! 

We shall renew the battle in the plain 

To-morrow : — red with blood will Xanthus be ; 

Hector and Ajax will be there again; • 15 

Helen will come upon the wall to see. 

Then we shall rust in shade, or shine in strife, 

And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs, 

And fancy that we put forth all our life. 

And never know how with the soul it fares, 20 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 43 1 

Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high, 
Upon our life a ruling effluence send. 
And when it fails, fight as we will, we die; 
And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end. 

1867. 

WEST LONDON 

Crouched on the pavement, close by Belgrave Square. 

A tramp I saw, ill, moody, and tongue-tied. 

A babe was in her arms, and at her side 

A girl; their clothes were rags, their feet were bare. 

Some labouring men, whose work lay somewhere there, 5 
Passed opposite; she touched her girl, who hied 
Across, and begged, and came back satisfied. 
The rich she had lei pass with frozen stare. 

Thought I : "Above her state this spirit towers ; 

She will not ask of aliens, but of friends, 10 

Of sharers in a common human fate. 

"She turns from that cold succour which attends 
The unknown little from the unknowing great, 
And points us to a better time than ours." 



1867. 



THE BETTER PART 



Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man, 
How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare! 
"Christ," some one says, "was human as we are; 
No judge eyes us from heaven, our sin to scan; 

"We live no more, when we have done our span." 5 

"Well, then, for Christ," thou answerest, "who can care? 

From sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear? 

Live we like brutes our life, without a plan !" 

So answerest thou ; but why not rather say : 
"Hath man no second life? — Pitch this one high! 10 

Sits there no judge in heaven, our sin to see? — 



432 ENGLISH POEMS 



"More strictly, then, the inward judge obey! 
Was Christ a man like us? Ah, let us try 
If we then, too, can be such men as he!" 



1869. 



KAISER DEAD 

What, Kaiser dead? The heavy news 
Post-haste to Cobham calls the Muse, 
From where in Farringford she brews 

The ode sublime, 
Or with Pen-bryn's bold bard pursues 5 

A rival rhyme. 

Kai's bracelet tail, Kai's busy feet, 
Were known to all the village-street. 
"What, poor Kai dead?" say all I meet; 

"A loss indeed !" lO 

O for the croon pathetic, sweet, 
Of Robin's reed! 

Six years ago I brought him down, 

A baby dog, from London town; 

Round his small throat of black and brown 15 

A ribbon blue. 
And vouched by glorious renown 

A dachshound true. 

His mother, most majestic dame, 

Of blood unmixed, from Potsdam came; 20 

And Kaiser's race we deemed the same — 

No lineage higher. 
And so he bore the imperial name. 

But ah, his sire! 

Soon, soon the days conviction bring: 25 

The collie hair, the collie swing. 
The tail's indomitable ring, 

The eye's unrest — 
The case was clear; a mongrel thing 

Kai stood confest. 30 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 433 

But all those virtues which commend 
The humbler sort who serve and tend 
Were thine in store, thou faithful friend. 

What sense, what cheer ! 
To us, declining tow'rds our end, 35 

A mate how dear ! 

For Max, thy brother-dog, began 
To flag, and feel his narrowing span; 
And cold, besides, his blue blood ran, 

Since, 'gainst the classes, 40 

He heard, of late, the Grand Old Man 

Incite the masses. 

Yes, Max and we grew slow and sad; 

But Kai, a tireless shepherd-lad. 

Teeming with plans, alert and glad 45 

In work or play, 
Like sunshine went and came, and bade 

Live out the day ! 

Still, still I see the figure smart — 

Trophy in mouth, agog to start, $0 

Then, home returned, once more depart; 

Or prest together 
Against thy mistress, loving heart. 

In winter weather. 

I see the tail, like bracelet twirled, 55 

In moments of disgrace uncurled. 
Then at a pardoning word refurled, 

A conquering sign. 
Crying, "Come on, and range the world, 

And never pine !" 60 

Thine eye was bright, thy coat it shone; 
Thou hadst thine errands, off and on; 
In joy thy last morn flew: anon, 

A fit! All's over; 
And thou art gone where Geist hath gone, 65 

And Toss, and Rover. 



434 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Poor Max, with downcast, reverent head, 
Regards his brother's form outspread; 
Full well Max knows the friend is dead 

Whose cordial talk, 70 

And jokes in doggish language said. 

Beguiled his walk. 

And Glory, stretched at Burwood gate, 

Thy passing by doth vainly wait ; 

And jealous Jock, thy only hate, 75 

The chiel from Skye, 
Lets from his shaggy Highland pate 

Thy memory die. 

Well, fetch his graven collar fine, 

And rub the steel, and make it shine, 8o 

And leave it round thy neck to twine, 

Kai, in thy grave. 
There of thy master keep that sign. 

And this plain stave. 
1887. 1890. 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 

THE BLESSED DAMOZEL 

The blessed damozel leaned out 

From the gold bar of Heaven; 
Her eyes were deeper than the depth 

Of waters stilled at even ; 
She had three lilies in her hand, 5 

And the stars in her hair were seven. ' 

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, 

No wrought flowers did adorn, 
But a white rose of Mary's gift. 

For service meetly worn; 10 

Her hair that lay along her back 

Was yellow like ripe corn. 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 435 

Herseemed she scafce had been a day 

One of God's choristers ; 
The wonder was not yet quite gone 15 

From that still look of hers; 
Albeit, to them she left, her day 

Had counted as ten years. 

(To one, it is ten years of years. 

— Yet now, and in this place, 20 

Surely she leaned o'er me — her hair 

Fell all about my face. — 
Nothing: the autumn-fall of leaves. 

The whole year sets apace.) 

It was the rampart of God's house 25 

That she was standing on; 
By God built over the sheer depth 

The which is Space begun; 
So high, that looking downward thence 

She scarce could see the sun. 30 

It lies in Heaven, across the flood 

Of ether, as a bridge. 
Beneath, the tides of day and night 

With flame and darkness ridge 
The void, as low as where this earth 35 

Spins like a fretful midge. 

Around her, lovers, nev/ly met 

'Mid deathless love's acclaims, 
Spoke evermore among themselves 

Their heart-remembered names; 40 

And the souls mounting up to God 

Went by her like thin flames. 

And still she bowed herself and stooped 

Out of the circling charm; 
Until her bosom must have made 45 

The bar she leaned on warm, 
And the lilies lay as if asleep 

Along her bended arm. 



436 ENGLISH POEMS 



From the fixed place of Heaven she saw 

Time, like a pulse, shake fierce S« 

Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove 
Within the gulf to pierce 

Its path; and now she spoke as when 
The stars sang in their spheres. 

The sun was gone now; the curled moon 55 

Was like a little feather 
Fluttering far down the gulf; and now 

She spoke through the still weather. 
Her voice was like the voice the stars 

Had when they sang together. 60 

(Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song, 

Strove not her accents there, 
Fain to be hearkened? When those bells 

Possessed the mid-day air, 
Strove not her steps to reach my side 65 

Down all the echoing stair?) 

*T wish that he were come to me, 

For he will come," she said. 
"Have I not prayed in Heaven? — on earth. 

Lord, Lord, has he not prayed? 70 

Are not two prayers a perfect strength? 

And shall I feel afraid? 

"When round his head the aureole clings, 
And he is clothed in white, 
I 'II take his hand and go with him 75 

To the deep wells of light; 
As unto a stream we will step down. 
And bathe there in God's sight. 

"We two will stand beside that shrine. 

Occult, withheld, untrod, 80 

Whose lamps are stirred continually 

With prayer sent up to God ; 
And see our old prayers, granted, melt 

Each like a little cloud. 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 437 

"We two will lie i' the shadow of 85 

That living mystic tree 
Within whose secret growth the Dove 

Is sometimes felt to be, 
While every leaf that His plumes touch 

Saith His Name audibly. 90 

"And I myself will teach to him, 

I myself, lying so. 
The songs I sing here; which his voice 

Shall pause in, hushed and slow. 
And find some knowledge at each pause, 95 

Or some new thing to know." 

(Alas! We two, we two, thou say'st! 

Yea, one wast thou with me 
That once of old. But shall God lift 

To endless unity 100 

The soul whose likeness with thy soul 

Was but its love for thee?) 

"We two," she said, "will seek the groves 

Where the lady Mary is, 
With her five handmaidens, whose names 105 

Are five sweet symphonies, 
Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen, 

Margaret, and Rosalys. 

"Circlewise sit they, with bound locks 

And foreheads garlanded; no 

Into the fine cloth, white like flame, 

Weaving the golden thread, 
To fashion the birth-robes for them 
Who are just born, being dead. 

"He shall fear, haply, and be dumb: 115 

Then will I lay my cheek 
To his, and tell about our love. 

Not once abashed or weak; 
And the dear Mother will approve 

My pride, and let me speak. 120 



438 



ENGLISH POEMS 



"Herself shall bring us, hand in hand, . 

To Him round Whom all souls 
Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads 

Bowed with their aureoles ; 
And angels meeting us shall sing 125 

To their citherns and citoles. 

"There will I ask of Christ the Lord 

Thus much for him and me: — 
Only to live as once on earth 

With Love,— only to be, 130 

As then awhile, forever now 

Together, I and he." 

She gazed and listened, and then said, 

Less sad of speech than mild, 
"All this is when he comes." She ceased. I35 

The light thrilled towards her, filled 
With angels in strong level flight. 

Her eyes prayed, and she smiled. 

(I saw her smile.) But soon their path 

Was vague in distant spheres : 140 

And then she cast her arms along 
The golden barriers, 

And laid her face between her hands, 

And wept. (I heard her tears.) 

1847- 1850. 

SISTER HELEN 

"Why did you melt your waxen man. 

Sister Helen? 
To-day is the third since you began." 
"The time was long, yet the time ran, 

Little brother." 5 

(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"But if you have done your work aright. 

Sister Helen, 
You'll let me play, for you said I might." lo 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 439 

"Be very still in your play to-night, 

Little brother." 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Third night, to-night, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"You said it must melt ere vesper-bell, 15 

Sister Helen; 
If now it be molten, all is well." 
"Even so — nay, peace ! you cannot tell. 

Little brother." 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 20 

O what is this, between Hell and Heaven?) 

"Oh the waxen knave was plump to-day. 

Sister Helen; 
How like dead folk he has dropped away!" 
"Nay now, of the dead what can you say, 25 

Little brother?" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
What of the dead, between Hell and Heaven?) 

"See, see, the sunken pile of wood. 

Sister Helen, 30 

Shines through the thin wax red as blood!" 
"Nay now, when looked you yet on blood, 

Little brother." 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
How pale she is, between Hell and Heaven!) 35 

"Now close your eyes, for they 're sick and sore, 

Sister Helen, 
And I '11 play without the gallery door." 
"Aye, let me rest — I '11 lie on the floor. 

Little brother." 40 

(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
What rest to-night, between Hell and Heaven?) 

"Here high up in the balcony, 

Sister Helen, 
The moon flies face to face with me." 45 



440 



ENGLISH POEMS 



"Aye, look and say whatever you see, 

Little brother." 
(0 Mother, Mary Mother, 
What sight to-night, between Hell and Heaven t) 

"Outside it 's merry in the wind's wake, 50 

Sister Helen; 
In the shaken trees the chill stars shake." 
"Hush, heard you a horse-tread as you spake, 

Little brother?" 
(0 Mother, Mary Mother, 55 

What sound to-night, between Hell and Heaven?) 

"I hear a horse-tread, and I see, 

Sister Helen, 
Three horsemen that ride terribly." 

"Little brother, whence come the three, 60 

Little brother?" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Whence should they come, between Hell and Heaven?) 

"They come by the hill-verge from Boyne Bar, 

Sister Helen, 65 

And one draws nigh, but two are afar." 
"Look, look, do you know them who they are. 

Little brother?" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Who should they be, between Hell and Heaven?) yo 

"Oh, it's Keith of Eastholm rides so fast. 

Sister Helen, 
For I know the white mane on the blast." 
"The hour has come, has come at last, 

Little brother !" 75 

(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Her hour at last, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"He has made a sign and called 'Halloo !' 

Sister Helen, 
And he says that he would speak with you." 80 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 441 



"Oh tell him I fear the frozen dew, 

Little brother." 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Why laughs she thus, between Hell and Heaven?) 

"The wind is loud, but I hear him cry, 85 

Sister Helen, 
That Keith of Ewern 's like to die." 
"And he and thou, and thou and I, 

Little brother." 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 90 

And they and we, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"Three days ago, on his marriage-morn. 

Sister Helen, 
He sickened, and lies since then forlorn." 
"For bridegroom's side is the bride a thorn, 95 

Little brother?" 
(0 Mother, Mary Mother, 
Cold bridal cheer, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"Three days and nights he has lain abed. 

Sister Helen, 100 

And he prays in torment to be dead." 
"The thing may chance, if he have prayed, 

Little bro'.her!" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
If he have prayed, betzveen Hell and Heaven!) 105 

"But he has not ceased to cry to-day. 

Sister Helen, 
That you should take your curse away." 
"My prayer was heard, — he need but pray, 

Little brother!" IIO 

(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Shall God not hear, between Hell and Heaven?) 

"But he says, till you take back your ban, 

Sister Helen, 
His soul would pass, yet never can." "5 



442 ENGLISH POEMS 



"Nay then, shall I slay a living man, 

Little brother?" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
A living soul, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"But he calls forever on your name, 120 

Sister Helen, 
And says that he melts before a flame." 
"My heart for his pleasure fared the same. 

Little brother." 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 125 

Fire at the heart, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"Here 's Keith of Westholm riding fast. 

Sister Helen, 
For I know the white plume on the blast." 
"The hour, the sweet hour I forecast, 130 

Little brother!" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Is the hour sweet, betzveen Hell and Heaven?) 

"He stops to speak, and he stills his horse. 

Sister Helen; 135 

But his words are drowned in the wind's course." 
"Nay hear, nay hear, you must hear perforce, 

Little brother!" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
What word now heard, between Hell and Heaven?) 140 

"Oh he says that Keith of Ewern's cry, 

Sister Helen, 
Is ever to see you ere he die." 
"In all that his soul sees, there am I, 

Little brother!" 145 

(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
The soul's one sight, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"He sends a ring and a broken coin, 

Sister Helen, 
And bids you mind the banks of Boyne." 150 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 443 

"What else he broke will he ever join, 

Little brother?" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
No, never joined, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"He yields you these and craves full fain, 155 

Sister Helen, 
You pardon him in his mortal pain." 
"What else he took will he give again, 

Little brother?" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 160 

Not twice to give, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"He calls your name in an agony, 

Sister Helen, 
That even dead Love must weep to see." 
"Hate, born of Love, is blind as he, 165 

Little brother!" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Love turned to hate, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"Oh it 's Keith of Keith now that rides fast, 

Sister Helen, 170 

For I know the white hair on the blast." 
"The short short hour will soon be past. 

Little brother!" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Will soon be past, between Hell and Heaven!) 175 

"He looks at me and he tries to speak, 

Sister Helen, 
But oh his voice is sad and weak !" 
"What here should the mighty Baron seek. 

Little brother?" 180 

(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Is this the end, between Hell and Heaven?) 

"Oh his son still cries, if you forgive. 

Sister Helen, 
The body dies but the soul shall live." 185 



444 ENGLISH POEMS 



"Fire shall forgive me as I forgive, 

Little brother!" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
As she forgives, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"Oh he prays you, as his heart would rive, 190 

Sister Helen, 
To save his dear son's soul alive." 
"Fire cannot slay it, it shall thrive. 

Little brother." 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 195 

Alas, alas, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"He cries to you, kneeling in the road. 

Sister Helen, 
To go with him for the love of God !" 
"The way is long to his son's abode, 200 

Little brother." 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
The way is long, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"A lady's here, by a dark steed brought. 

Sister Helen, 205 

So darkly clad, I saw her not." 
"See her now or never see aught. 

Little brother!" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
What more to see, between Hell and Heaven?) 210 

"Her hood falls back, and the moon shines fair, 

Sister Helen, 
On the Lady of Ewern's golden hair." 
"Blest hour of my power and her despair. 

Little brother!" 215 

(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Hour blest and banned, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"Pale, pale her cheeks, that in pride did glow, 

Sister Helen, 
'Neath the bridal-wreath three days ago." 220 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 445 

"One morn for pride and three days for woe, 

Little brother!" 
(0 Mother, Mary Mother, 
Three days, three nights, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"Her clasped hands stretch from her bending head, 225 

Sister Helen ; 
With the loud wind's wail her sobs are wed." 
"What wedding-strains hath her bridal-bed, 

Little brother?" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 230 

What strains hut death's, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"She may not speak, she sinks in a swoon, 

Sister Helen, — 
She lifts her lips and gasps on the moon." 
"Oh, might I but hear her soul's blithe tune, 235 

Little brother!" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Her woe's dumb cry, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"They 've caught her to Westholm's saddle-bow, 

Sister Helen, 240 

And her moonlit hair gleams white in its flow." 
"Let it turn whiter than winter snow. 

Little brother!" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Woe-withered gold, between Hell and Heaven!) 243 

"O Sister Helen, you heard the bell. 

Sister Helen; 
More loud than the vesper-chime, it fell." 
"No vesper-chime but a dying knell. 

Little brother !" 250 

(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
His dying knell, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"Alas ! but I fear the heavy sound. 

Sister Helen; 
Is it in the sky or in the ground?" 255 



446 ENGLISH POEMS 



"Say, have they turned their horses round, 

Little brother?" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
What would she more, between Hell and Heaven?) 

"They have raised the old man from his knee, 260 

Sister Helen, 
And they ride in silence hastily." 
"More fast the naked soul doth flee, 

Little brother!" 
(0 Mother, Mary Mother, 265 

The naked soul, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"Flank to flank e.re the three steeds gone. 

Sister Helen, 
But the lady's dark steed goes alone." 
"And lonely her bridegroom's soul hath flovim, 270 

Little brother." 
(0 Mother, Mary Mother, 
The lonely ghost, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"Oh the vsrind is sad in the iron chill. 

Sister Helen, 275 

And weary sad they look by the hill." 
"But he and I are sadder still, 

Little brother!" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Most sad of all, between Hell and Heaven!) 280 

"See, see, the wax has dropped from its place, 

Sister Helen, 
And the flames are winning up apace !" 
"Yet here they burn but for a space, 

Little brother!" 285 

(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Here for a space, between Hell and Heaven!) 

"Ah ! what white thing at the door has crossed, 

Sister Helen, 
Ah! what is this that sighs in the frost?" 290 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 447 

"A soul that 's lost as mine is lost, 

Little brother!" 
(O Mother, Mary Mother, 
Lost, lost, all lost, between Hell and Heaven!) 

1851. 1853- 

FROM 

THE HOUSE OF LIFE 

LOVE ENTHRONED 

I marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair: — 
Truth, with awed lips; and. Hope, with eyes upcast; 
And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen Past 

To signal-fires, Oblivion's flight to scare; 

And Youth, with still some single golden hair 5 

Unto his shoulder clinging, since the last 
Embrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast; 

And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death" to wear. 

Love's throne was not with these; but far above 

All passionate wind of welcome and farewell 10 

He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of, 

Though Truth foreknow Love's heart, and Hope foretell, 
And Fame be for Love's sake desirable. 

And Youth be dear and Life be sweet to Love. 

LOVESIGHT 

When do I see thee most, beloved one? 

When in the light the spirits of mine eyes 

Before thy face, their altar, solemnize 
The worship of that Love through thee macie known? 
Or when in the dusk hours (we two alone), 5 

Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies. 

Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies, 
And my soul only sees thy soul its own? 

O love, my love ! if I no more should see 

Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, 10 

Nor image of thine eyes in any spring, — 
How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope 
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, 

The wind of Death's imperishable wing? 



448 ENGLISH POEMS 



HEART S HOPE 

By what word's power, the key of paths untrod, 
Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore, 
Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore 

Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod? 

For lo ! in some poor rhythmic period, 5 

Lady, I fain would tell how evermore 
Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor 

Thee from myself, neither our love from God. 

Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I 

Draw from one loving heart such evidence 10 

As to all hearts all things shall signify; 

Tender as dawn's first hill-fire, and intense 
As instantaneous penetrating sense, 

In Spring's birth-hour, of other Springs gone by. 

SILENT NOON 

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, — 
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms ; 
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms 

'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass. 

All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, 5 

Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge. 
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge. 

'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass. 

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly 

Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky : — 10 

So this winged hour is dropt to us from above. 
Oh, clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, 
This close-companioned, inarticulate hour 

When twofold silence was the song of love. 

THE DARK GLASS 

Not I myself know all my love for thee : 

How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh 
To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday? 

Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 449 

As doors and windows bared to some loud sea, 5 

Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray; 
And shall my sense pierce love — the last relay 

And ultimate outpost of eternity? 

Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all? 

One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand; 10 

One little heart-flame sheltered in his hand. 

Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call 

And veriest touch of powers primordial 
That any hour-girt life may understand. 

WILLOWWOOD 



I sat with Love upon a woodside well, 

Leaning across the water, I and he; 

Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me, 
But touched his lute, wherein was audible 
The certain secret thing he had to tell: S 

Only our mirrored eyes met silently 

In the low wave ; and that sound came to be 
The passionate voice I knew ; and my tears fell. 

And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers ; 

And with his foot and with his wing-feathers 10 

He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth. 
Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair; 
And as I stooped, her own lips, rising there. 

Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth. 

II. 

And now Love sang: but his was such a song, 

So meshed with half-remembrance hard to free, 

As souls disused in death's sterility 
May sing when the new birthday tarries long. 
And I was made aware of a dumb throng 5 

That stood aloof, one form by every tree; 

All mournful forms for each was I or she, 
The shades of those our days that had no tongue. 



45° ENGLISH POEMS 



They looked on us, and knew us and were known; 

While fast together, alive from the abyss, lo 

Clung the soul-wrung, implacable, close kiss; 
And pity of self through all made broken moan 
Which said, "For once, for once, for once alone!" 
And still Love sang, and what he sang was this:— 

III. 

"O ye, all ye that walk in Willowwood, 

That walk with hollow faces burning white, 
What fathom-depth of soul-struck widowhood, 

What long, what longer hours, one lifelong night, 
Ere ye again; who so in vain have wooed 5 

Your last hope lost, who so in vain invite 
Your lips to that their unforgotten food, 

Ere ye, ere ye again shall see the light ! 

Alas ! the bitter banks in Willowwood, 

With tear-spurge wan, with blood-wort burning red: lo 
Alas ! if ever such a pillow could 

Steep deep the soul in sleep till she were dead. 
Better all life forget her than this thing. 
That Willowwood should hold her wandering!" 

IV. 

So sang he: and as meeting rose and rose 
Together cling through the wind's wellaway 
Nor change at once, yet near the end of day 

The leaves drop loosened where the heart-stain glows, 

So when the song died did the kiss unclose; s 

And her face fell back drowned, and was as gray 
As its gray eyes ; and if it ever may 

Meet mine again I know not if Love knows. 

Only I know that I leaned low, and drank 

A long draught from the water where she sank— lO 

Her breath and all her tears and all her soul: 
And as I leaned, I know I felt Love's face 
Pressed on my neck with moan of pity and grace, 

Till both our heads were in his aureole. 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 451 

THE CHOICE 
I. 

Eat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die. 

Surely the earth, that 's wise being very old, 

Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold 
Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I 
May pour for thee this golden wine, brim-high, 5 

Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold. 

We '11 drown all hours : thy song, while hours are tolled, 
Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky. 

Now kiss, and think that there are really those. 

My own high-bosomed beauty, who increase 10 

Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way! 
Through many years they toil; then on a day 
They die not — for their life was death — ^but cease, 
And round their narrow lips the mould falls close. 

11. 

Watch thou and fear; to-morrow thou shalt die. 

Or art thou sure thou shalt have time for death? 

Is not the day which God's word promiseth. 
To come man knows not when? In yonder sky. 
Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth : can I 5 

Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath 

Even at this moment haply quickeneth 
The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh 
Though screened and hid, shall walk the daylight here. 

And dost thou prate of all that man shall do? 10 

Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be 

Glad in his gladness that comes after thee? 

Will his strength slay thy worm in hell? Go to: 
Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear. 

ni. 

Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die. 
Outstretched in the sun's warmth upon the shore. 
Thou say'st: "Man's measured path is all gone o'er; 

Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh, 



452 ENGLISH POEMS 



Man clomb until he touched the truth; and I, 5 

Even I, am he whom it was destined for." 
How should this be? Art thou, then, so much more 

Than they who sowed, that thou shouldst reap thereby? 

Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound 

Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me; 10 

Then reach on with thy thought till it be drowned. 
Miles and miles distant though the last line be. 

And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond. 
Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea. 

THE sun's shame 

Beholding youth and hope in mockery caught 
From life; and mocking pulses that remain 
When the soul's death of bodily death is fain; 

Honour unknown, and honour known unsought; 

And penury's sedulous, self-torturing thought 5 

On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane; 
And longed-for woman longing all in vain 

For lonely man with love's desire distraught; 

And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasantness 

Given unto bodies of whose souls men say, 10 

None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they : — 

Beholding these things, I behold no less 

The blushing morn and blushing eve confess 
The shame that loads the intolerable day. 

THE ONE HOPE 

When vain desire at last and vain regret 

Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain. 

What shall assuage the unforgotten pain 
And teach the unforgetful to forget? 
Shall Peace be still a sunk stream long unmet, 5 

Or may the soul at once in a green plain 

Stoop through the spray of some sweet life-fountain 
And cull the dew-drenched flowering amulet? 

Ah, when the wan soul in that golden air, 

Between the scriptured petals softly blown, 10 

Peers breathless for the gift of grace unknown. 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 453 

Ah, let none other alien spell soe'er 
But only the one Hope's one name be there, — 
Not less nor more, but even that word alone. 
l847?-i88l. 1869, 1870, 1881. 

MARY'S GIRLHOOD 
{For a Picture) 

This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect 

God's Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she 

Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee. 
Unto God's will she brought devout respect. 
Profound simplicity of intellect, 5 

And supreme patience. From her mother's knee 

Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity; 
Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect. 

So held she through her girlhood; as it were 

An angel-watered lily, that near God 10 

Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home, 
She woke in her white bed, and had no fear 
At all, — yet wept till sunshine, and felt awed: 
Because the fulness of the time was come. 
1848-49. 1849. 

FOR 

A VENETIAN PASTORAL 

BY GIORGIONE 

Water, for anguish of the solstice : — nay. 
But dip the vessel slowly, — nay, but lean 
And hark how at its verge the wave sighs in 

Reluctant. Hush ! beyond all depth away 

The heat lies silent at the brink of day : 5 

Now the hand trails upon the viol-string 
That sobs, and the brown faces cease to sing. 

Sad with the whole of pleasure. Whither stray 

Her eyes now, from whose mouth the slim pipes creep 

And leave it pouting, while the shadowed grass 10 

Is cool against her naked side? Let be: — 



454 ENGLISH POEMS 

Say nothing now unto her lest she weep, 

Nor name this ever. Be it as it was — 

Life touching lips with Immortality. 

1850. 



MARY MAGDALENE 

AT THE DOOR OF SIMON THE PHARISEE 

(For a Drawing) 
"Why wilt thou cast the roses from thine hair? 

Nay, be thou all a rose — wreath, lips, and cheek. 
Nay, not this house — that banquet-house we seek; 
See how they kiss and enter; come thou there. 
This delicate day of love we two will share. 

Till at our ear love's whispering night shall speak. 
What, sweet one, — hold'st thou still the foolish freak? 
Nay, when I kiss thy feet they 'II leave the stair." 

"Oh loose me! Seest thou not my Bridegroom's face 
That draws me to Him? For His feet my kiss. 
My hair, my tears He craves to-day : — and oh 
What words can tell what other day and place 

Shall see me clasp those blood-stained feet of His? 
He needs me, calls me, loves me: let me go!" 

1859^ 1870. 



FOR 

THE WINE OF CIRCE 

BY EDWARD BURNE JONES 

Dusk-haired and gold-robed o'er the golden wine 
She stoops, wherein, distilled of death and shame. 
Sink the black drops; while, lit with fragrant flame, 

Round her spread board the golden sunflowers shine. 

Doth Helios here with Hecate combine 

(O Circe, thou their votaress?) to proclaim 
For these thy guests all rapture in Love's name. 

Till pitiless Night give Day the countersign? 

Lords of their hour, they come. And by her knee 
Those cowering beasts, their equals heretofore, 



DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 455 

Wait; who with them in new equality 

To-night shall echo back the sea's dull roar 
With a vain wail from passion's tide-strown shore 

Where the dishevelled seaweed hates the sea. 

1870. 



THE WOODSPURGE 

The wind flapped loose, the wind was still, 
Shaken out dead from tree and hill : 
I had walked on at the wind's will; 
I sat now, for the wind was still. 

Between my knees my forehead was ; 5 

My lips, drawn in, said not "Alas !" 
My hair was over in the grass; 
My naked ears heard the day pass. 

My eyes, wide open, had the run 

Of some ten weeds to fix upon; 10 

Among those few, out of the sun. 

The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one. 

From perfect grief there need not be 

Wisdom or even memory: 

One thing then learnt remains to me, 15 

The woodspurge has a cup of three. 

1870. 



JOHN KEATS 

The weltering London ways, where children weep 

And girls whom none call maidens laugh, — strange road 
Miring his outward steps, who inly trode 

The bright Castalian brink and Latmos' steep, — 

Even such his life's cross-paths ; till deathly deep 
He toiled through sands of Lethe ; and long pain. 
Weary with labour spurned and love found vain. 

In dead Rome's sheltering shadow wrapped his sleep. 



456 ENGLISH POEMS 



O pang-dowered poet, whose reverberant lips 
And heart-strung lyre awoke the moon's eclipse, 

Thou whom the daisies glory in growing o'er, 
Their fragrance clings around thy name, not writ 
But rumoured in water, while the fame of it 

Along Time's flood goes echoing evermore. 



1881. 



CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 

SONG 

When I am dead, my dearest, 

Sing no sad songs for me; 
Plant thou no roses at my head, 

Nor shady cypress-tree: 
Be the green grass above me 5 

With showers and dewdrops wet; 
And if thou wilt, remember. 

And if thou wilt, forget. 

I shall not see the shadows, 

I shall not feel the rain; 10 

I shall not hear the nightingale 

Sing on, as if in pain : 
And, dreaming through the twilight 

That doth not rise nor set. 
Haply I may remember, 15 

And haply may forget. 

1862. 



THREE SEASONS 

"A cup for hope !" she said, 
In springtime ere the bloom was old; 
The crimson wine was poor and cold 
By her mouth's richer red. 



1853- 



CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 457 

"A cup for love!" how low, 5 

How soft the words; and all the while 
Her blush was rippling with a smile 
Like summer after snow. 

"A cup for memory !" 
Cold cup that one must drain alone, lo 

While autumn winds are up and moan 
Across the barren sea. 

Hope, memory, love : 
Hope for fair morn, and love for day, 
And memory for the evening grey I5 

And solitary dove. 

1862. 



SLEEP AT SEA 

Sound the deep waters: — 

Who shall sound that deep? 
Too short the plummet, 

And the watchmen sleep. 
Some dream of effort 5 

Up a toilsome steep ; 
Some dream of pasture grounds 

For harmless sheep. 

White shapes flit to and fro 

From mast to mast; 10 

They feel the distant tempest 

That nears them fast; 
Great rocks are straight ahead, 

Great shoals not past ; 
They shout to one another 15 

LIpon the blast. 

O, soft the streams drop music 

Between the hills, 
And musical the birds' nests 

Beside those rills; 20 



458 ENGLISH POEMS 



The nests are types of home 

Love-hidden from ills, 
The nests are types of spirits 

Love-music fills. 

So dream the sleepers, 25 

Each man in his place; 
The lightning shows the smile 

Upon each face; 
The ship is driving, driving, 

It drives apace, 30 

And sleepers smile, and spirits 

Bewail their case. 

The lightning glares and reddens 

Across the skies ; 
It seems but sunset 35 

To those sleeping eyes. 
When did the sun go down 

On such a wise? 
From such a sunset 

When shall day arise? 40 

"Wake !" call the spirits, 

But to heedless ears : 
They have forgotten sorrows 

And hopes and fears; 
They have forgotten perils ' 45 

And smiles and tears; 
Their dream has held them long. 

Long years and years. 

"Wake!" call the spirits again; 

But it would take 50 

A louder summons 

To bid them awake. 
Some dream of pleasure 

For another's sake; 
Some dream, forgetful 55 

Of a lifelong ache. 



CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 459 



One by one slowly, 

Ah, how sad and slow! 
Wailing and praying, 

The spirits rise and go — 60 

Clear stainless spirits, 

White, as white as snow; 
Pale spirits, wailing 

For an overthrow. 

One by one flitting, 65 

Like a mournful bird 
Whose song is tired at last 

For no mate heard. 
The loving voice is silent. 

The useless word; 70 

One by one flitting. 

Sick with hope deferred. 

Driving and driving, 

The ship drives amain. 
While swift from mast to mast 75 

Shapes flit again. 
Flit silent as the silence 

Where men lie slain; 
Their shadow cast upon the sails 

Is like a stain. 80 

No voice to call the sleepers. 

No hand to raise; 
They sleep to death in dreaming 

Of length of days. 
Vanity of vanities 85 

The Preacher says; 
Vanity is the end 

Of all their ways. 
1853. 1862. 

UP-HILL 
Does the road wind up-hill all the way? 

Yes, to the very end. 
Will the day's journey take the whole long day? 

From morn to night, my friend. 



46o ENGLISH POEMS 



But is there for the night a resting-place? 5 

A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. 

May not the darkness hide it from my face? 
You cannot miss that inn. 

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? 

Those who have gone before. 10 

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? 

They will not keep you standing at that door. 

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? 

Of labour you shall find the sum. 
Will there be beds for me and all who seek? 15 

Yea, beds for all who come. 
1858. 1861. 



WINTER RAIN 

Every valley drinks, 

Every dell and hollow; 
Where the kind rain sinks and sinks. 

Green of spring will follow. 

Yet a lapse of weeks S 

Buds will burst their edges. 
Strip their wool-coats, glue-coats, streaks. 

In the woods and hedges ; 

Weave a bower of love 

For birds to meet each other, 10 

Weave a canopy above 

Nest and egg and mother. 

But for fattening rain 

We should have no flowers, 
Never a bud or leaf again 15 

But for soaking showers; 

Never a mated bird 

In the rocking tree-tops. 
Never indeed a flock or herd 

To graze upon the lea-crops. 20 



CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 461 

Lambs so wholly white, 

Sheep the sun-bright leas on, 
They could have no grass to bite 

But for rain in season. 

We should find no moss 25 

In the shadiest places. 
Find no waving meadow-grass 

Pied vnth broad-eyed daisies; 

But miles of barren sand, 

With never a son or daughter, 30 

Not a lily on the land, 
Or lily on the water. 
1859. ^^2. 

YOUTH GONE, AND BEAUTY GONE 

Youth gone, and beauty gone — if ever there 
Dwelt beauty in so poor a face as this, — 
Youth gone and beauty, what remains of bliss? 
I will not bind fresh roses in my hair. 
To shame a check at best but little fair, — S 

Leave youth his roses who can bear a thorn; 
I will not seek for blossoms anywhere, 

Except such common flowers as blow with corn. 
Youth gone and beauty gone, what doth remain? 

The longing of a heart pent up forlorn, 10 

A silent heart whose silence loves and longs, 
The silence of a heart which sang its songs 
While youth and beauty made a summer morn. 
Silence of love that cannot sing again. 

1881. 

THIS LIFE IS FULL OF NUMBNESS AND OF BALK 

This Life is full of numbness and of balk. 
Of haltingness and baffled short-coming. 
Of promise unfulfilled, of everything 

That is puffed vanity and empty talk: 

Its very bud hangs cankered on the stalk, 5 

Its very song-bird trails a broken wing, 
Its very spring is not indeed like spring. 



462 ENGLISH POEMS 



But sighs like autumn round an aimless walk. 
This Life we live is dead for all its breath; 

Death's self it is, set off on pilgrimage, 10 

Travelling with tottering steps the first short stage: 
The second stage is one mere desert dust 
Where Death sits veiled amid creation's rust : — 
Unveil thy face, O Death who art not Death. 

1881. 



WILLIAM MORRIS 

AN APOLOGY 

Of heaven or hell I have no power to sing, 

I cannot ease the burden of your fears, 

Or make quick-coming death a little thing. 

Or bring again the pleasure of past years. 

Nor for my words shall ye forget your tears, 5 

Or hope again for aught that I can say. 

The idle singer of an empty day. 

But rather, when, aweary of your mirth, 

From full hearts still unsatisfied ye sigh, 

And, feeling kindly unto all the earth, 10 

Grudge every minute as it passes by, 

Made the more mindful that the sweet days die, 

Remember me a little then, I pray. 

The idle singer of an empty day. 

The heavy trouble, the bewildering care 15 

That weighs us down who live and earn our bread, 

These idle verses have no power to bear; 

So let me sing of names remembered, 

Because they, living not, can ne'er be dead. 

Or long time take their memory quite away 20 

From us poor singers of an empty day. 

Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time, 
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight? 
Let it suffice me that my murmuring rhyme 



WILLIAM MORRIS 46 c 



Beats with Jight wing against the ivory gate, 25 

Telling a tale not too importunate 

To those who in the sleepy region stay, 

Lulled by the singer of an empty day. 

Folk say a wizard to a northern king 

At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show 30 

That through one window men beheld the spring, 

And through another saw the summer glow. 

And through a third the fruited vines a-row. 

While still, unheard, but in its wonted way, 

Piped the drear wind of that December day. 35 

So with this Earthly Paradise it is. 
If ye will read aright, and pardon me, 
Who strive to build a shadowy isle of bliss 
Midmost the beating of the steely sea. 
Where tossed about all hearts of men must be; 40 

Whose ravening monsters mighty men shall slay. 
Not the poor singer of an empty day. 

186& 

THE DEATH OF PARIS 

In the last month of Troy's beleaguerment, 

When both sides, waiting for some god's great hand. 

But seldom o'er the meads the war-shout sent. 

Yet idle rage would sometimes drive a band 

From town or tent about Troy-gate to stand 5 

All armed, and there to bicker aimlessly; 

And so at least the weary time wore by. 

In such a fight, when wide the arrows flew. 

And little glory fell to any there. 

And naught there seemed for a stout man to do, 10 

Rose Philoctetes from the ill-roofed lair 

That hid his rage, and crept out into air, 

And strung his bow, and slunk down to the fight, 

'Twixt rusty helms, and shields that once were bright. 

And even as he reached the foremost rank, 15 

A glimmer as of polished steel and gold 



464 ENGLISH POEMS 



Amid the war-worn Trojan folk, that shrank 

To right and left, his fierce eyes could behold; 

He heard a shout, as if one man were bold 

About the streams of Simoeis that day — 20 

One heart still ready to play out the play. 

Therewith he heard a mighty bowstring twang, 

And a shaft screamed 'twixt hostile band and band, 

And close beside him fell, with clash and clang, 

A well-tried warrior from the Cretan land, 25 

And rolled in dust, clutching with desperate hand 

At the gay feathers of the shaft that lay 

Deep in his heart, well silenced from that day. 

Then of the Greeks did man look upon man, 

While Philoctetes from his quiver drew 30 

A dreadful shaft, and through his fingers ran 

The dull-red feathers ; of strange steel and blue 

The barbs were, such as archer never knew, 

But black as death the thin- forged bitter point, 

That with the worm's blood Fate did erst anoint. 35 

He shook the shaft, and notched it, and therewith 

Forth from the Trojans rang that shout again, 

Whistled the arrow, and a Greek did writhe 

Once more upon the earth in his last pain ; 

While the grey clouds, big with the threat of rain, 40 

Parted a space, and on the Trojans shone, 

And struck a glory from that shining one. 

Then Philoctetes scowled, and cried, "O Fate, 

I give thee this, thy strong man gave to me. 

Do with it as thou wilt ! — let small or great 45 

E'en as thou wilt before its black point be] 

Late grows the year, and stormy is the sea, 

The oars lie rotten by the gunwales now 

That nevermore a Grecian surf shall know." 

He spake and drew the string with careless eyes, 50 

And, as the shaft flew forth, he turned about 
And tramped back slowly, noting in no wise 



WILLIAM MORRIS 465 



How from the Greeks uprose a joyous shout, 

And from the Trojan host therewith brake out 

Confused clamour, and folk cried the name 55 

Of him wherethrough the weary struggle came, 

Paris the son of Priam ! Then once more 

O'er head of leaguer and beleaguered town 

Grey grew the sky; a cold sea-wind swept o'er 

The ruined plain, and the small rain drove down; 60 

While slowly underneath that chilling frown 

Parted the hosts^sad Troy into its gates, 

Greece to its tents, and waiting on the Fates. 

Next day the seaward-looking gates none swung 

Back on their hinges, whatso Greek might fare, 65 

With seeming-careless mien, and bow unstrung, 

Anigh them; whatso rough-voiced horn might dare. 

With well-known notes, the war-worn warders there. 

Troy slept amid its nightmares through the day, 

And dull with waking dreams the leaguer lay. 70 

Yet in the streets did man say unto man : 
"Hector is dead, and Troilus is dead ; 
Aeneas turneth toward the waters wan; 
In his fair house Antenor hides his head ; 

Fast from the tree of Troy the boughs are shred; 75 

And now this Paris, now this joyous one, 
Is the cry cried that biddeth him begone?" 

But on the morrow's dawn, ere yet the sun 

Had shone athwart the mists of last night's rain. 

And shown the image of the Spotless One 80 

Unto the tents and hovels of the plain 

Whose girth of war she long had made all vain. 

From out a postern looking towards the north 

A little band of silent men went forth. 

And in their midst a litter did they bear, 85 

Whereon lay one with linen wrapped around. 
Whose wan face turned unto the fresher air 
As though a little pleasure he had found 



466 ENGLISH POEMS 



Amidst of pain; some dreadful torturing wound 

The man endured belike, and as a balm go 

Was the fresh morn, with all its rest and calm. 

After the weary tossing of the night 

And close dim-litten chamber, whose dusk seemed 

Labouring with whispers fearful of the light. 

Confused with images of dreams long dreamed, 95 

Come back again, now that the lone torch gleamed 

Dim before eyes that saw naught real as true 

To vex the heart that naught of purpose knew. 

Upon the late-passed night in e'en such wise 

Had Paris lain. What time, like years of life, 100 

Had passed before his weary heart and eyes ! 

What hopeless, nameless longings ! what wild strife 

'Gainst naught for naught, with wearying changes rife, 

Had he gone through, till in the twilight grey 

They bore him through the cold, deserted way. 105 

Mocking and strange the streets looked now, most meet 

For a dream's ending, for a vain life's end; 

While sounded his strong litter-bearers' feet. 

Like feet of men who through Death's country wend 

Silent, for fear lest they should yet offend no 

The grim King, satisfied to let them go; 

Hope bids them hurry, fear's chain makes them slow. 

In feverish doze of time a-gone he thought, 

When love was soft, hfe strong, and a sweet name, 

The first sweet name that led him down love's ways, 115 

Unbidden ever to his fresh lips came; 

Half witting would he speak it, and for shame 

Flush red, and think what folk would deem thereof 

If they might know Oenone was his love. 

And now, — Oenone no more love of his, 120 

He worn with war and passion, — must he pray, 
"O thou, I loved and love not, life and bliss 
Lie in thine hands to give or take away; 
O heal me, hate me not ! think of the day 



WILLIAM MORRIS 467 



When as thou thinkest still, e'en so I thought 125 

That all the world without thy love was naught." 

Yea, he was borne forth such a prayer to make, 

For she alone of all the world, they said. 

The thirst of that dread poison now might slake; 

For, midst the ancient wise ones nurtured 130 

On peaceful Ida, in the lore long dead, 

Lost to the hurrying world, right wise she was. 

Mighty to bring most wondrous things to pass. 

Was the world worth the minute of that prayer, 

If yet her love, despised and cast aside, 135 

Should so shine forth that she should heal him there? 

He knew not and he recked not; fear and pride 

'Neath Helen's kiss and Helen's tears had died. 

And life was love, and love too strong that he 

Should catch at death to save him misery. 140 

So, with soul drifting down the stream of love, 

He let them bear him through the fresh fair morn, 

From out Troy-gates ; and no more now he strove 

To battle with the wild dreams, newly born 

From that past night of toil and pain forlorn; 145 

No farewell did he mutter 'neath his breath 

To failing Troy, no eyes he turned toward death. 

Troy dwindled now behind them, and the way 

That round about the feet of Ida wound 

They left ; and up a narrow vale, that lay, 150 

Grassy and soft betwixt the pine-woods bound, 

They went, and ever gained the higher ground. 

For as a trench the little valley was 

To catch the runnels that made green its grass. 

Now ere that green vale narrowed to an end, 155 

Blocked by a shaly slip thrust bleak and bare 

From the dark pine-woods edge, as men who wend 

Upon a well-known way they turned them there, 

And through the pine-wood's dusk began to fare 

By blind ways, till all noise of bird and wind 160 

Amid that odorous night was left behind. 



468 ENGLISH POEMS 



And in mean while deepened the languid doze 

That lay on Paris into slumber deep; 

O'er his unconscious heart, and eyes shut close, 

The image of that very place 'gan creep, 165 

And twelve years younger in his dreamful sleep, 

Light-footed, through the awful wood he went. 

With beating heart, on lovesome thoughts intent. 

Dreaming, he went, till thinner and more thin 

And bright with growing day, the pine-wood grew, 170 

Then to an open rugged space did win; 

Whence a close beech-wood was he passing through, 

Whose every tall white stem full well he knew; 

Then seemed to stay awhile for loving shame. 

When to the brow of the steep bank he came. 175 

Where still the beech-trunks o'er the mast-strewn ground 

Stood close, and slim and tall, but hid not quite 

A level grassy space they did surround 

On every side save one, that to the light 

Of the clear western sky, cold now but bright, i8o 

Was open, and the thought of the far sea. 

Toward which a small brook tinkled merrily. 

Himseemed he lingered there, then stepped adown 

With troubled heart into the soft green place, 

And up the eastmost of the beech-slopes brown 185 

He turned about a lonesome, anxious face, 

And stood to listen for a little space 

If any came; but naught he seemed to hear 

Save the brook's babble, and the beech-leaves' stir. 

And then he dreamed great longing o'er him came — 190 

Too great, too bitter, of those days to be. 

Long past, when love was born amidst of shame; 

He dreamed that, as he gazed full eagerly 

Into the green dusk between tree and tree. 

His trembling hand slid down the horn to take 195 

Wherewith he erst was wont his herd to wake. 



WILLIAM MORRIS 469 



Trembling, he set it to his lips, and first 
Breathed gently through it; then strained hard to blow. 
For dumb, dumb was it grown, and no note burst 
From its smooth throat. And ill thoughts poisoned now 200 
The sweetness of his dream ; he murmured low, 
"Ah, dead and gone, and ne'er to come again ; 
Ah, passed away! ah, longed for long in vain! 

"Lost love, sweet Helen, come again to me !" 
Therewith he dreamed he fell upon the ground 205 

And hid his face and wept out bitterly; 
But woke with fall and torturing tears, and found 
He lay upon his litter, and the sound 
Of feet departing from him did he hear. 
And rustling of the last year's leaves anear. 210 

But in the self-same place he lay indeed. 

Weeping and sobbing, and scarce knowing why; 

His hand clutched hard the horn that erst did lead 

The dew-lapped neat round Ida merrily; 

He strove to raise himself, he strove to cry 215 

That name of Helen once, but then withal 

Upon him did the load of memory fall. 

Quiet he lay a space, while o'er him drew 

The dull, chill cloud of doubt and sordid fear, 

As now he thought of what he came to do, 220 

And what a dreadful minute drew anear; 

He shut his eyes, and now no more could hear 

His litter-bearers' feet; as lone he felt 

As though amid the outer wastes he dwelt. 

Amid that fear a minute naught and vain 225 

His life and love seemed; with a dreadful sigh 

He raised his arm, and soul's and body's pain 

Tore at his heart with new-born agony, 

As a thin quavering note, a ghost-like cry. 

Rang from the long-unused lips of the horn, 230 

Spoiling the sweetness of the happy morn. 

He let the horn fall down upon his breast 
And lie there, and his hand fell to his side; 



470 ENGLISH POEMS 



And there indeed his body seemed to rest, 

But restless was his soul, and wandered wide 235 

Through a dim maze of lusts unsatisfied. 

Thoughts half thought out, and words half said, and deeds 

Half done, unfruitful, like o'er-shadowed weeds. 

His eyes were shut now, and his dream's hot tears 

Were dry upon his cheek ; the sun grown high 240 

Had slain the wind, when smote upon his ears 

A sudden rustling in the beech-leaves dry; 

Then came a pause; then footsteps drew anigh 

O'er the deep grass; he shuddered, and in vain 

He strove to turn, despite his burning pain. 245 

Then through his half-shut eyes he seemed to see 

A woman drawing near, and held his breath, 

And clutched at the white linen eagerly. 

And felt a greater fear than fear of death, 

A greater pain than that love threateneth, 250 

As soft, low breathing o'er his head he heard, 

And thin fine linen raiment gently stirred. 

Then spoke a sweet voice close, ah, close to him! 
"Thou sleepest, Paris ? would that I could sleep ! 
On the hillside do I lay limb to limb, 255 

And lie day-long, watching the shadows creep 
And change, till day is gone, and night is deep; 
Yet sleep not ever, "wearied with the thought 
Of all a little lapse of time has brought. 

"Sleep, though thou calledst me! Yet 'mid thy dream 260 
Hearken, the while I tell about my life, 
The life I led while 'mid the steely gleam 
Thou wert made happy with the joyous strife. 
Or in the soft arms of the Greek king's wife 
Wouldst still moan out that day had come too soon, 265 
Calling the dawn the glimmer of the moon. 

"Wake not, wake not, before the tale is told ! 
Not long to tell, the tale of those ten years ! 
A gnawing pain that never groweth old, 



WILLIAM MORRIS 471 



A pain that shall not be washed out by tears ; 270 

A dreary road the weary foot-sole wears, 
Knowing no rest, but going to and fro, 
Treading it harder *neath the weight of woe. 

"No middle, no beginning, and no end; 
No staying place, no thought of anything, 275 

Bitter or sweet, with that one thought to blend; 
No least joy left that I away might fling 
And deem myself grown great; no hope to cling 
About me; naught but dull, unresting pain. 
That made all memory sick, all striving vain. 280 

"Thou — hast thou thought thereof, perchance anights, 
In early dawn, and shuddered, and then said, 
'Alas, poor soul ! yet hath she had delights, 
For none are wholly hapless but the dead.' 
Liar ! O liar ! my woe upon thine head, 285 

My agony that naught can take away! 
Awake, arise, O traitor, unto day!" 

Her voice rose as she spoke, till loud and shril? 

It rang about the place; but when at last 

She ended, and the echoes from the hill, 290 

Woful and wild, back o'er the place were cast, 

From her lost love a little way she passed. 

Trembling, and looking round as if afeared 

At those ill sounds that through the morn she heard. 

Then still she stood, her clenched hands slim and white 295 

Relaxed, her drawn brow smoothed; with a great sigh 

Her breast heaved, and she muttered : "Ere the light 

Of yesterday had faded from the sky, 

I knew that he would seek me certainly; 

And, knowing it, yet feigned I knew it not, 300 

Or with what hope, what hope, my heart was hot. 

"That tumult in my breast I might not name — 
Love should I call it? nay, my life was love 
And pain these ten years; — should I call it shame? 
What shame my weary waiting might reprove 305 

After ten years? — or pride? what pride could move 



472 ENGLISH POEMS 



After ten years this heart within my breast? 
Alas ! I lied — I lied, and called it rest. 

"I called it rest, and wandered throught the night; 
Upon my river's flowery bank I stood, 310 

And thought its hurrying, changing black and white 
Stood still beneath the moon, that hill and wood 
Were moving round me, and I deemed it good 
The world should change so, deemed it good that day 
Forever into night had passed away. 315 

"And still I wandered through the night, and still 
Things changed, and changed not, round me; and the day — 
This day wherein I am — had little will 
With dreadful truth to drive the night away — 
God knows if for its coming I did pray! 320 

God knows if at the last in twilight-tide 
My hope — my hope undone — I more might hide." 

Then looked she toward the litter as she spake, 

And slowly drew anigh it once again, 

And from her worn, tried heart there did outbreak 325 

Wild sobs and weeping, shameless of its pain; 

Till, as the storm of passion 'gan to wane. 

She looked and saw the shuddering misery 

Wherein her love of the old days did lie. 

Still she wept on, but gentler now withal, 330 

And passed on till above the bier she stood. 

Watching the well-wrought linen rise and fall 

Beneath his faltering breath; and still her blood 

Ran fiery hot with thoughts of ill and good, 

Pity and scorn, and love and hate, as she, 335 

Half dead herself, gazed on his misery. 

At last she spake : "This tale I told e'en now, 

Know'st thou 'mid dreams what woman suffered this? 

Canst thou not dream of the old days, and how 

Full oft thy lips would say 'twixt kiss and kiss, 340 

That all of bliss was not enough of bliss 

My loveliness and kindness to reward. 

That for thy love the sweetest life was hard? 



WILLIAM MORRIS 



473 



"Yea, Paris, have I not been kind to thee? 
Did I not live thy wishes to fulfil? 345 

Wert thou not happy when thou lovedst me? 
What dream then did we have of change or ill? 
Why must thou needs change? I am unchanged still; 
I need no more than thee — what needest thou 
But that we might be happy, yea e'en now?" 350 

He opened hollow eyes and looked on her, 

And stretched a trembling hand out; ah, who knows 

With what strange, mingled look of hope and fear. 

Of hate and love, their eyes met ! Come so close 

Once more, that everything they now might lose 355 

Amid the flashing out of that old fire. 

The short-lived uttermost of all desire. 

He spake not, — shame and other love there lay 
Too heavy on him ; but she spake again : 
"E'en now at the beginning of the day, 360 

Weary with hope and fear and restless pain, 
I said — 'Alas,' I said, 'if all be vain 
And he will have no pity, yet will I 
Have pity — how shall kindness ere pass by ?' " 

He drew his hand aback and laid it now 365 

Upon the swathings of his wound, but she 

Set her slim hand upon her knitted brow 

And gazed on him with bright eyes eagerly; 

Nor cruel looked her lips that once would be 

So kind, so longed for; neither spake awhile, 370 

Till in her face there shone a sweet strange smile. 

She touched him not, but yet so near she came 

That on his very face he felt her breath; 

She whispered, "Speak! thou wilt not speak for shame, 

I will not grant for love, and grey-winged Death 375 

Meanwhile above our folly hovereth. 

Speak! was it not all false, is it not done? 

Is not the dream dreamed out, the dull night gone? 

"Hearkenest thou Paris ? O look kind on me ! 
I hope no more indeed, but couldst thou turn 380 



474 ENGLISH POEMS 



Kind eyes to me, then much for me and thee 

Might love do yet. Doth not the old fire burn? 

Doth not thine heart for words of old days yearn? 

Canst thou not say — alas, what wilt thou say, 

Since I have put by hope for many a day? 385 

"Paris, I hope no more, yet while ago — 
Take it not ill if I must needs say this — 
A while ago I cried, 'Ah no, no, no ! 
It is no love at all, this love of his; 

He loves her not, I it was had the bliss 390 

Of being the well-beloved — dead is his love, 
For surely none but I his heart may move.' " 

She wept still; but his eyes grew wild and strange 

With that last word, and harder his face grew. 

Though her tear-blinded eyes saw not the change. 395 

Long beat about his heart false words and true; 

A veil of strange thought he might not pierce through, 

Of hope he might not name, clung round about 

His wavering heart, perplexed with death and doubt. 

Then trembling did he speak : "-I love thee still, 400 

Surely I love thee." But a dreadful pain 

Shot through his heart, and strange presage of ill, 

As, like the ceasing of the summer rain. 

Her tears stopped, and she drew aback again, 

Silent a moment, till a bitter cry 405 

Burst from her lips grown white with agony. 

A look of pity came across his face 

Despite his pain and horror, and her eyes 

Saw it, and changed, and for a little space 

Panting she stood, as one checked by surprise 410 

Amidst of passion; then in tender wise. 

Kneeling, she 'gan the bandages undo 

That hid the place the bitter shaft tore through. 

Then when the wound and his still face and white 

Lay there before her, she 'gan tremble sore, 415 

For images of hope and past delight, 



WILLIAM MORRIS 475 



Not to be named once, 'gan her heart flit o'er; 

Blossomed the longing in her heart, and bore 

A dreadful thought of uttermost despair, 

That all if gained would be no longer fair. 420 

In dull, low words she spake: "Yea, so it is. 

That thou art near thy death, and this thy wound 

I yet may heal, and give thee back what bliss 

The ending of thy life may yet surround : 

Mock not thyself with hope! the Trojan ground 425 

Holds tombs, not houses now ; all gods are gone 

From out your temples but cold Death alone. 

"Lo, if I heal thee, and thou goest again 
Back unto Troy, and she, thy new love, sees 
Thy lovesome body freed from all its pain, 430 

And yet awhile amid the miseries 
Of Troy ye twain lie loving, well at ease, 
Yet 'midst of this, while she is asking thee 
What kind soul made thee whole and well to be, 

"And thou art holding back my name with lies, 435 

And thinking, maybe, Paris, of this face, — 
E'en then the Greekish flame shall sear your eyes. 
The clatter of the Greeks fill all the place. 
While she, my woe, the ruin of thy race. 
Looking toward changed days, a new crown, shall stand, 440 
Her fingers trembling in her husband's hand. 

"Thou I called love once, wilt thou die e'en thus. 
Ruined 'midst ruin, ruining, bereft 
Of name and honour? O love, piteous 

That but for this were all the hard things cleft 445 

That lay 'twixt us and love, till naught was left 
'Twixt thy lips and my lips ! O hard that we 
Were once so full of all felicity ! 

"O love, O Paris, know'st thou this of me. 
That in these hills e'en such a name I have 450 

As being akin to a divinity. 
And lightly may I slay and lightly save ; 



476 ENGLISH POEMS 



Nor know I surely if the peaceful grave 

Shall ever hide my body dead — behold, 

Have ten long years of misery made me old?" 455 

Sadly she laughed, and rising wearily 

Stood by him in the fresh and sunny morn; 

The image of his youth and faith gone by 

She seemed to be, for one short minute born 

To make his shamed, lost life seem more forlorn; 460 

He shut his eyes and moaned, but once again 

She knelt beside him, and the weary pain 

Deepened upon her face. "Hearken !" she said, 

'Death is anear thee; is then death so ill 

With me anigh thee — since Troy is as dead, 465 

Ere many tides the Xanthus' mouth shall fill, 

And thou art reft of her that harmed me still, 

What so may change — shall I heal thee for this. 

That thou may'st die more mad for her last kiss?" 

She gazed at him with straining eyes ; and he — 470 

Despite himself love touched his dying heart. 

And from his eyes desire flashed suddenly. 

And o'er his wan face the last blood did start 

As with soft love his close-shut lips 'gan part. 

She laughed out bitterly, and said, "Why, then, 475 

Must I needs call thee falsest of all men, 

"Seeing thou liest not to save thy life? 
Yet listen once again — fair is this place. 
That knew not the beginning of the strife 
And recks not of its end — and this my face, 480 

This body thou wouldst day-long once embrace 
And deem thyself right happy, thine it is. 
Thine only, Paris, shouldst thou deem it bliss." 

He looked into her eyes, and deemed he saw 

A strange and awful look a-gathering there, 485 

And sick scorn at her quivering fine lip draw; 

Yet trembling he stretched out his hand to her. 

Although self-loathing and strange hate did tear 



WILLIAM MORRIS 477 



His heart that death made cold, e'en as he said, 
"Whatso thou wilt shall be remembered ; 490 

"Whatso thou wilt, O love, shall be forgot, — 
It may be I shall love thee as of old." 
As thunder laughs she laughed — "Nay, touch me not! 
Touch me not, fool !" she cried ; "thou grow'st a-cold. 
And I am Death, Death, Death! — the tale is told 495 

Of all thy days ! of all those joyous days 
When, thinking naught of me, thou garneredst praise, 

"Turn back again, and think no more of me ! 
I am thy death ! woe for thy happy days ! 
For I must slay thee ; ah, my misery ! SCO 

Woe for the god-like wisdom thou wouldst praise ! 
Else I my love to life again might raise 
A minute, ah, a minute! and be glad 
While on my lips thy blessing lips I had! 

"Would God that it were yesterday again! 505 

Would God the red sun had died yester-eve, 
And I were no more hapless now than then ! 
Would God that I could say, and not believe, 
As yesterday, that years past hope did leave 
My cold heart — that I lived a death in life — $10 

Ah ! then within my heart was yet a strife ! 

"But now, but now, is all come to an end — 
Nay, speak not ; think not of me ! think of her 
Who made me this ; and back unto her wend. 
Lest her lot, too, should be yet heavier ! 515 

I will depart for fear thou diest here. 
Lest I should see thy woful ghost forlorn 
Here wandering ever 'twixt the night and morn. 

" — O heart grown wise, wilt thou not let me go? 
Will ye be never satisfied, O eyes, 520 

With gazing on my misery and my woe? 
O foolish, quivering heart, now grown so wise, 
What folly is it that from out thee cries 
To be all close to him once more, once more. 
Ere yet the dark stream cleaveth shore from shore?" 525 



478 ENGLISH POEMS 



Her voice was a wail now; with quivering hand 

At her white raiment did she clutch and tear 

Unwitting, as she rose up and did stand 

Bent over his wide eyes and pale face, where 

No torturing hope was left, no pain, or fear; 530 

For death's cold rest was gathering fast on him, 

And toward his heart crept over foot and limb. 

A little while she stood, and spake no word, 

But hung above him, with white, heaving breast, 

And moaning still as moans the grey-winged bird 535 

In autumn-tide o'er his forgotten nest ; 

And then her hands about her throat she pressed, 

As though to keep a cry back, then stooped down 

And set her face to his, while spake her moan: 

"O love, O cherished more than I can tell, 540 

Through years of woe, O love, my life and bane, 
My joy and grief, farewell, farewell, farewell! 
Forgetfulness of grief I yet may gain; 
In some wise may come ending to my pain; 
It may be yet the gods will have me glad! 545 

Yet, love, I would that thee and pain I had! 

Alas ! it may not be, it may not be. 

The falling blossom of the late spring-tide 

Shall hang a golden globe upon the tree 

When through the vale the mists of autumn glide: 550 

Yet would, O love, with thee I might abide ! 

Now, now that restful death is drawing nigh — 

Farewell, farewell ! how good it is to die !" 

O strange, O strange, when on his lips once more 

Her lips were laid! O strange that he must die 555 

Now, when so clear a vision had come o'er 

His failing heart, and keenest memory 

Had shown him all his changing life passed by; 

And what he was, and what he might have been. 

Yea, and should be, perchance, so clear were seen ! 560 

Yea, then were all things laid within the scale — 
Pleasure and lust, love and desire of fame, 



WILLIAM MORRIS 479 



Kindness, and hope, and folly — all the tale 

Told in a moment, as across him came 

That sudden flash, bright as the lightning-flame, 565 

Showing the wanderer on the waste how he 

Has gone astray 'mid dark and misery. 

Ah, and her face upon his dying face. 

That the sun warmed no more ! that agony 

Of dying love, wild with the tale of days 570 

Long past, and strange with hope that might not be — 

All was gone now, and what least part had he 

In love at all, and why was life all gone? 

Why must he meet the eyes of Death alone? 

Alone, for she and ruth had left him there; 575 

Alone, because the ending of the strife 

He knew, well taught by death, drew surely near; 

Alone, for all these years with pleasure rife 

Should be a tale 'mid Helen's coming life. 

And she and all the world should go its ways, 580 

'Midst other troubles, other happy days. 

And yet how was it with him? As if death 

Strove yet with struggling life and love in vain. 

With eyes grown deadly bright and rattling breath, 

He raised himself, while wide his blood did stain 585 

The linen fair, and seized the horn again. 

And blew thereon a wild and shattering blast 

Ere from his hand afar the thing he cast. 

Then, as a man who in a failing fight 

For a last onset gathers suddenly 590 

All soul and strength, he faced the summer light. 

And from his lips broke forth a mighty cry 

Of "Helen, Helen, Helen !" — yet the sky 

Changed not above his cast-back golden head. 

And merry was the world though he was dead. 595 

But now when every echo was as still 

As were the lips of Paris, once more came 

The litter-bearers down the beech-clad hill. 



48o ENGLISH POEMS 



And stood about him crying out his name, 

Lamenting for his beauty and his fame, 600 

His love, his kindness, and his merry heart. 

That still would thrust ill days and thoughts apart. 

Homeward they bore him through the dark woods' gloom. 

With heavy hearts presaging nothing good. 

And when they entered Troy again, a tomb 605 

For them and theirs it seemed. — Long has it stood. 

But now indeed the labour and the blood, 

The love, the patience, and good-heart are vain — 

The Greeks may have what yet is left to gain. 

I cannot tell what crop may clothe the hills, 610 

The merry hills Troy whitened long ago; 

Belike the sheaves, wherewith the reaper fills 

His yellow wain, no whit the weaker grow 

For that past harvest-tide of wrong and woe; 

Belike the tale, wept over otherwhere, 615 

Of those old days is clean forgotten there. 

1869. 



ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 

A SONG IN TIME OF ORDER. 1852 

Push hard across the sand, 

For the salt wind gathers breath; 
Shoulder and wrist and hand, 

Push hard as the push of death. 

The wind is as iron that rings, 5 

The foam-heads loosen and flee; 
It swells and welters and swings. 

The pulse of the tide of the sea. 

And up on the yellow cliff 

The long corn flickers and shakes; 10 

Push, for the wind holds stiff, 

And the gunwale dips and rakes. 



ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 48 1 

Good hap to the fresh fierce weather, 

The quiver and beat of the sea ! 
While three men hold together 15 

The kingdoms are less by three. 

Out to the sea with her there, 

Out with her over the sand ; 
Let the kings keep the earth for their share! 

We have done with the sharers of land. 20 

They have tied the world in a tether, 

They have bought over God with a fee; 

While three men hold together, 
The kingdoms are less by three. 

We have done with the kisses that sting, 25 

The thief's mouth red from the feast, 

The blood on the hands of the king, 
And the lie at the lips of the priest. 

Will they tie the winds in a tether, 

Put a bit in the jaws of the sea? 30 

While three men hold together, 

The kingdoms are less by three. 

Let our flag run out straight in the wind! 

The old red shall be floated again 
When the ranks that are thin shall be thinned, 35 

When the names that were twenty are ten; 

When the devil's riddle is mastered 

And the galley-bench creaks with a Pope, 

We shall see Buonaparte the bastard 

Kick heels with his throat in a rope. 40 

While the shepherd sets wolves on his sheep 

And the emperor halters his kine. 
While Shame is a watchman asleep 

And Faith is a keeper of swine. 

Let the wind shake our flag like a feather, 45 

Like the plumes of the foam of the sea.' 

While three men hold together, 
The kingdoms are less by three. 



482 ENGLISH POEMS 



All the world has its burdens to bear, 

From Cayenne to the Austrian whips; 50 

Forth, with the rain in our hair 

And the salt sweet foam in our lips; 

In the teeth of the hard glad weather, 
In the blown wet face of the sea ! 

While three men hold together, 55 

The kingdoms are less by three. 

1862. 

WHEN THE HOUNDS OF SPRING ARE ON WINTER'S 

TRACES 

When the hounds of Spring are on Winter's traces, 
The Mother of Months in meadow or plain 

Fills the shadows and windy places 

With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; 

And the brown bright nightingale amorous 5 

Is half assuaged for Itylus, 

For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, 
The tongueless vigil and all the pain. 

Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers. 

Maiden most perfect. Lady of Light, 10 

With a noise of winds and many rivers. 

With a clamour of waters, and with might; 

Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet. 

Over the splendour and speed of thy feet; 

For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers, 15 

Round the feet of the Day and the feet of the Night. 

Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her, 
Fold our hands round her knees, and cling? 

O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her. 

Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring! 20 

For the stars and the winds are unto her 

As raiment, as songs of the harp-player; 

For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her. 

And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing. 

For winter's rains and ruins are over, 25 

And all the season of snows and sins; 



ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 483 

The days dividing lover and lover, 

The light that loses, the night that wins; 
And time remembered is grief forgotten. 
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, 30 

And in green underwood and cover 

Blossom by blossom the spring begins. 

The full streams feed on flower of rushes, 

Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot, 
The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes 35 

From leaf to flower and flower to fruit; 
And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire, 
And the oat is heard above the lyre. 
And the hoofed heel of a satyr crushes 

The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root. 40 

And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night. 

Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid. 
Follows with dancing and fills with delight 

The maenad and the Bassarid; 
And soft as lips that laugh and hide, 45 

The laughing leaves of the trees divide, ' 
And screen from seeing and leave in sight 

The god pursuing, the maiden hid. 

The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair 

Over her eyebrows hiding her eyes; 50 

The wild vine slipping down leaves bare 

Her bright breast shortening into sighs; 
The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves, 
But the berried ivy catches and cleaves 
To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare 55 

The wolf that follows, the faun that flies. 

1865. 

RONDEL 

Kissing her hair I sat against her feet, 
Wove and unwove it, wound and found it sweet; 
Made fast therewith her hands, drew down her eyes. 
Deep as deep flowers and dreamy like dim skies; 
With her own tresses bound and found her fair, 5 

Kissing her hair. 



484 ENGLISH POEMS 



Sleep were no sweeter than her face to me, 
Sleep of cold sea-bloom under the cold sea; 
What pain could get between my face and hers? 
What new sweet thing would love not relish worse? 10 

Unless, perhaps, white death had kissed me there, 
Kissing her hair? 



i866. 



A LEAVE-TAKING 

Let us go hence, my songs ; she will not hear. 
Let us go hence together without fear; 
Keep silence now, for singing-time is over. 
And over all old things and all things dear. 
She loves not you nor me as all we love her. ' $ 

Yea, thovfgh we sang as angels in her ear, 
She would not hear. 

Let us rise up and part; she will not know. 
Let us go seaward as the great winds go. 
Full of blown sand and foam; what help is here? lo 

There is no help for all these things are so. 
And all the world is bitter as a tear. 
And how these things are, though ye strove to show. 
She would not know. 

Let us go home and hence; she will not weep. 15 

We gave love many dreams and days to keep, 
Flowers without scent, and fruits that would not grow. 
Saying, "If thou wilt, thrust in thy sickle, and reap." 
All is reaped now; no grass is left to mow: 
And we that sowed, though all we fell on sleep, 20 

She would not weep. 

Let us go hence and rest; she will not love. 
She shall not hear us if we sing hereof. 
Nor see love's ways, how sore they are and steep. 
Come hence, let be, lie still ; it is enough. 25 

Love is a barren sea, bitter and deep ; 
And though she saw all heaven in flower above. 
She would not love. 



ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 485 

Let us give up, go down ; she will not care. 

Though, all the stars made gold of all the air, 30 

And the sea moving saw before it move 

One moon-flower making all the foam-flowers fair, 

Though all those waves went over us, and drove 

Deep down the stifling lips and drowning hair, — 

She would not care. 35 

Let us go hence, go hence; she will not see. 

Sing all once more together; surely she. 

She too, remembering days and words that were. 

Will turn a little toward us, sighing; but we. 

We are hence, we are gone, as though we had not been 

there. 40 

Nay, and though all men seeing had pity on me. 
She would not see. 

1866. 

THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE 

Here, where the world is quiet, 

Here, where all trouble seems 
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot 

In doubtful dreams of dreams, 
I watch the green field growing, 5 

For reaping folk and sowing, 
For harvest-time and mowing, 

A sleepy world of streams. 

I am tired of tears and laughter. 

And men that laugh and weep, 10 

Of what may come hereafter 

For men that sow to reap; 
I am weary of days and hours. 
Blown buds of barren flowers. 
Desires and dreams and powers, 15 

And everything but sleep. 

Here life has death for neighbour, 

And far from eye or ear 
Wan waves and wet winds labour, 

Weak ships and spirits steer ; 20 



486 ENGLISH POEMS 



They drive adrift, and whither 
They wot not who make thither; 
But no such winds blow hither, 
And no such things grow here. 

No growth of moor or coppice, 25 

No heather-flower or vine, 
But bloomless buds of poppies. 

Green grapes of Proserpine, 
Pale beds of blowing rushes 
Where no leaf blooms or blushes 30 

Save this whereout she crushes 

For dead men deadly wine. 

Pale, without name or number, 

In fruitless fields of corn, 
They bow themselves and slumber 35 

All night till light is born ; 
And like a soul belated. 
In hell and heaven unmated, 
By cloud and mist abated 

Comes out of darkness morn. 40 

Though one were strong as seven, 

He too with death shall dwell. 
Nor wake with wings in heaven. 

Nor weep for pains in hell; 
Though one were fair as roses, 45 

His beauty clouds and closes; 
And well though love reposes, 

In the end it is not well. 

Pale, beyond porch and portal. 

Crowned with calm leaves, she stands 50 

Who gathers all things mortal 

With cold immortal hands ; 
Her languid lips are sweeter 
Than Love's, who fears to greet her, 
To men that mix and meet her 55 

From many times and lands. 

She waits for each and other. 
She waits for all men born; 



ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 487 

Forgets the earth her mother, 

The life of fruits and corn ; 60 

And spring and seed and swallow 
Take wing for her and follow 
Where summer song rings hollow 

And flowers are put to scorn. 

There go the loves that wither, 65 

The old loves with wearier wings; 

And all dead years draw thither. 
And all disastrous things ; 

Dead dreams of days forsaken, 

Blind buds that snows have shaken, 70 

Wild leaves that winds have taken, 
Red strays of ruined springs. 

We are not sure of sorrow. 

And joy was never sure; 
To-day will die to-morrow; 75 

Time stoops to no man's lure; 
And Love, grown faint and fretful, 
With lips but half regretful. 
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful 

Weeps that no loves endure. 80 

From too much love of living. 

From hope and fear set free. 
We thank with brief thanksgiving 

Whatever gods may be 
That no life lives forever, 85 

That dead men rise up never. 
That even the weariest river 

Winds somewhere safe to sea. 

Then star nor sun shall waken, 

Nor any change of light ; 90 

Nor sound of waters shaken. 

Nor any sound or sight; 
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal, 
Nor days nor things diurnal; 
Only the sleep eternal 95 

In an eternal night. 

i?66. 



488 ENGLISH POEMS 



HERTHA 
I am that which began; 

Out of me the years roll; 
Out of me God and man ; 
I am equal and whole; 
God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am 

the soul. 5 

Before ever land was, 

Before ever the sea. 
Or soft hair of the grass. 
Or fair limbs of the tree, 
Or the flesh-coloured fruit of my branches, I was, and thy 

soul was in me. lo 

First life on my sources 

First drifted and swam; 
Out of me are the forces 
That save it or damn; 
Out of me man and woman, and wild-beast and bird; before 

God was, I am. 15 

Beside or above me 

Naught is there to go; 
Love or unlove me, * 

Unknow me or know, 
I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I 

am the blow. 20 

I the mark that is missed 

And the arrows that miss, 
I th^ mouth that is kissed 
And the breath in the kiss, 
The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the 

body that is. 25 

I am that thing which blesses 

My spirit elate; 
That which caresses 
With hands uncreate 
My limbs unbegotten that measure the length of the measure 

of fate. 30 



ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 489 

But what thing dost thou now, 
Looking Godward, to cry 
"I am I, thou art thou, 

I am low, thou art high"? 
I am thou, whom thou seekest to find him ; find thou but thy- 
self, thou art I. 35 

I the grain and the furrow, 
The plough-cloven clod. 
And the ploughshare drawn thorough. 
The germ and the sod. 
The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which 

is God. 40 

Hast thou known how I fashioned thee, 

Child, underground? 
Fire that impassioned thee. 
Iron that bound. 
Dim changes of water, what thing of all these hast thou 

known of or found? 45 

Canst thou say in thine heart 

Thou hast seen with thine eyes 
With what cunning of art 

Thou wast wrought in what wise. 
By what force of what stuff thou wast shapen, and shown on 

my breast to the skies? 50 

Who hath given, who hath sold it thee, 

Knowledge of me? 
Hath the wilderness told it thee? 
Hast thou learnt of the sea? 
Hast thou communed in spirit with night? have the winas 

taken counsel with thee? 55 

Have I set such a star 

To show light on thy brow 
That thou sawest from afar 
What I show to thee now? 
Have ye spoken as brethren together, the sun and the 

mountains and thou? 60 



49© ENGLISH POEMS 



What is here, dost thou know it? 

What was, hast thou known ? 
Prophet nor poet 

Nor tripod nor throne 
Nor spirit nor flesh can make answer, but only thy Mother 

alone. 65 

Mother, not maker. 

Born, and not made; 
Though her children forsake her. 
Allured or afraid, 
Praying prayers to the God of their fashion, she stirs not for 
all that have prayed. 70 

A creed is a rod. 

And a crown is of night; 
But this thing is God — 

To be man with thy might, 
To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out 

thy life as the light. 75 

I am in thee to save thee. 

As my soul in thee saith ; 
Give thou, as I gave thee. 
Thy life-blood and breath. 
Green leaves of thy labour, white flowers of thy thought, 

and red fruit of thy death. 80 

Be the ways of thy giving 
As mine were to thee; 
The free life of thy living. 
Be the gift of it free ; 
Not as servant to lord, nor as master to slave, shalt thou 

give thee to me. 85 

O children of banishment, 

Souls overcast. 
Were the lights ye see vanish meant 
Alway to last. 
Ye would know not the sun overshining the shadows and stars 

overpast. 90 



ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 



491 



I, that saw where ye trod 

The dim paths of the night, 
Set the shadow called God 
In your skies to give light; 
But the morning of manhood is risen, and the shadowless 

soul is in sight. 95 

The tree many-rooted 

That swells to the sky ' 

With frondage red-fruited. 

The life-tree am I; , 

In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves : ye shall 

live and not die. 100 

But the gods of your fashion 

That take and that give. 
In their pity and passion 

That scourge and forgive. 
They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off; they 

shall die and not live. 105 

My own blood is what stanches 

The wounds in my bark; 
Stars caught in my branches 
Make day of the dark, 
And are worshipped as suns ^ till the sunrise shall tread out 

their fires as a spark. no 

Where dead ages hide under 
The live roots of the tree. 
In my darkness the thunder 
Makes utterance of me ; 
In the clash of my boughs with each other ye hear the waves 

sound of the sea. 115 

That noise is of Time 

As his feathers are spread 
And his feet set to climb 

Through the boughs overhead, 
And my foliage rings round him and rustles, and branches 

are bent with his tread. 120 



492 



ENGLISH POEMS 



The storm-winds of ages 

Blow through me and cease, 
The war-wind that rages, 
The spring-wind of peace. 
Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my 

blossoms increase. 125 

All sounds of all changes. 
All shadows and lights 
On the world's mountain-ranges 
And stream-riven heights. 
Whose tongue is the wind's tongue and language of storm- 
clouds on earth-shaking nights ; 130 

All forms of all faces, 

All works of all hands 
In unsearchable places 
Of time-stricken lands, 
All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop 

through me as sands. 135 

Though sore be my burden 
And more than ye know. 
And my growth have no guerdon 
But only to grow. 
Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or death- 
worms below. 140 

These too have their part in me, 

As I too in these; 
Such fire is at heart in me, 
Such sap is this tree's, 
Which hath in it all sounds and all secrets of infinite lands 

and of seas. 145 

In the spring-coloured hours 

When my mind was as May's, 
There brake forth of me flowers 
By centuries of days. 
Strong blossoms with perfume of manhood shot out from 

my spirit as rays. 150 



ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 



493 



And the sound of them springing 

And smell of their shoots 
Were as warmth and sweet singing 
And strength to my roots ; 
And the lives of my children made perfect with freedom of 

soul were my fruits. 155 

I bid you but be; 

I have need not of prayer; 
I have need of you free 

As your mouths of mine air, 
That my heart may be greater within me, beholding the fruits 

of me fair. , 160 

More fair than strange fruit is 

Of faiths ye espouse; 
In me only the root is 

That blooms in your boughs; 
Behold now your God that ye made you, to feed him with 

faith of your vows. 165 

In the darkening and whitening 

Abysses adored, 
With dayspring and lightning 
For lamp and for sword, 
God thunders in heaven, and his angels are red with the wrath 

of the Lord. 170 

O my sons, O too dutiful 

Toward gods not of me. 
Was not I enough beautiful? 
Was it hard to be free? 
For behold, I am with you, am in you and of you ; look forth 

now and see. 175 

Lo, winged with world's wonders, 

With miracles shod. 
With the fires of his thunders 
For raiment and rod, 
God trembles in heaven, and his angels are white with the 

terror of God. 180 



494 ENGLISH POEMS 



For his twilight is come on him, 

His anguish is here; 
And his spirits gaze dumb on him, 
Grown grey from his fear; 
And his hour taketh hold on him stricken, the last of his 

infinite year. 185 

Thought made him and breaks him. 

Truth slays and forgives ; 
But to you, as time takes him. 
This new thing it gives, 
Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom and 

lives. 190 

For truth only is living. 

Truth only is whole. 
And the love of his giving 
Man's polestar and pole ; 
Man, pulse of my center, and fruit of my body, and seed of 

my soul. 19s 

One birth of my bosom; 

One beam of mine eye; 
One topmost blossom 
That scales the sky; 
Man, equal and one with me, man that is made of me, man 

that is I. 200 

1871. 

THE PILGRIMS 

Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass 
Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was 
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be? 
For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing. 
— Our lady of love by you is unbeholden ; 5 

For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden 
Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we 

That love, we know her more fair than anything. 

— Is she a queen, having great gifts to give? 

— Yea, these: that whoso hath seen her shall not live 10 



ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 



495 



Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain. 
Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears ; 
And when she bids die he shall surely die. 
And he shall leave all things under the sky 

And go forth naked under sun and rain 15 

And work and wait and watch out all his years. 

— Hath she on earth no place of habitation? 
— Age to age calling, nation answering nation, 

Cries out, Where is she? and there is none to say; 

For if she be not in the spirit of men, 20 

For if in the inward soul she hath no place, 
In vain they cry unto her, seeking her face. 

In vain their mouths make much of her ; for they 
Cry with vain tongues, till the heart lives again. 

— O ye that follow, and have ye no repentance? 25 

For on your brows is written a mortal sentence, 
An hieroglyph of sorrow, a fiery sign. 

That in your lives ye shall not pause or rest. 
Nor have the sure sweet common love, nor keep 
Friends and safe days, nor joy of life nor sleep. 30 

— These have we not, who have one thing, the divine 
Face and clear eyes of faith and fruitful breast. 

— And ye shall die before your thrones be won. 
— Yea, and the changed world and the liberal sun 

Shall move and shine without us, and we lie 35 

Dead; but if she too move on earth and live, 
But if the old world with all the old irons rent 
Laugh and give thanks, shall we be not content? 
Nay, we shall rather live, we shall not die. 

Life being so little and death so good to give. 40 

— And these men shall forget you. — Yea, but we 
Shall be a part of the earth and the ancient sea, 
And heaven-high air august, and awful fire. 

And all things good; and no man's heart shall beat 
But somewhat in it of our blood once shed 45 

Shall quiver and quicken, as now in us the dead 
Blood of men slain and the old same life's desire 
Plants in their fiery footprints our fresh feet. 



496 ENGLISH POEMS 



— But ye that might be clothed with all things pleasant, 
Ye are foolish that put off the fair soft present, 50 

That clothe yourselves with the cold future air ; 

When mother and father and tender sister and brother 
And the old live love that was shall be as ye, 
Dust, and no fruit of loving life shall be. 

— She shall be yet who is more than all these were, 55 
Than sister or wife or father unto us or mother. 

— Is this worth life, is this, to win for wages? 
Lo, the dead mouths of the awful grey-grown ages. 
The venerable, in the past that is their prison. 

In the outer darkness, in the unopening grave, 60 

Laugh, knowing how many as ye now say have said. 
How many, and all are fallen, are fallen and dead: 
Shall ye dead rise, and these dead have not risen? 

— Not we but she, who is tender and swift to save. 

— Are ye not weary and faint not by the way, 65 

Seeing night by night devoured of day by day. 
Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire? 
Sleepless : and ye too when shall ye too sleep ? 
— We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet, 
And surely more than all things sleep were sweet, 70 

Than all things save the inexorable desire 

Which whoso knoweth shall neither faint nor weep. 

— Is this so sweet that one were fain to follow? 
Is this so sure where all men's hopes are hollow, 

Even this your dream, that by much tribulation 75 

Ye shall make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks 
straight ? 
— Nay, though our life were blind, our death were fruitless, 
Not therefore were the whole world's high hope rootless ; 
But man to man, nation would turn to nation. 

And the old life live, and the old great word be great. 80 

— Pass on then and pass by us and let us be. 
For what light think ye after life to see? 

And if the world fare better will ye know? 

And if man triumph who shall seek you and say? 



ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 



497 



— Enough of light is this for one life's span, 85 

That all men born are mortal, but not man; 

And we men bring death lives by night to sow. 
That man may reap and eat and live by day. 

1871. 

A FORSAKEN GARDEN 

In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland, 
At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee. 

Walled round with rocks as an inland island, 
The ghost of a garden fronts the sea. 

A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses 5 

The steep square slope of the blossomless bed 

Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses 
Now lie dead. 

The fields fall southward, abrupt and broken. 

To the low last edge of the long lone land. 10 

If a step should sound or a word be spoken. 

Would a ghost not rise at the strange guest's hand? 
So long have the grey bare walks lain guestless. 

Through branches and briers if a man make way. 
He shall find no life but the sea-wind's, restless 15 

Night and day. 

The dense hard passage is blind and stifled 

That crawls by a track none turn to climb 
To the strait waste place that the years have rifled 

Of all but the thorns that are touched not of Time. 20 

The thorns he spares when the rose is taken; 

The rocks are left when he wastes the plain. 
The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken. 
These remain. 

Not a flower to be pressed of the foot that falls not; 25 

As the heart of a dead man the seed-plots are dry; 

From the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not, 
Could she call, there were never a rose to reply. 

Over the meadows that blossom and wither 

Rings but the note of a sea-bird's song; 30 

Only the sun and the rain come hither 
All year long. 



498 ENGLISH POEMS 



The sun burns sere and the rain dishevels 

One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath. 
Only the wind here hovers and revels 35 

In a round where life seems barren as death. 
Here there was laughing of old, there was weeping, 

Haply, of lovers none ever will know. 
Whose eyes went seaward a hundred sleeping 

Years ago. 40 

Heart handfast in heart as they stood, "Look thither," 
Did he whisper ? "Look forth from the flowers to the sea ; 

For the foam-flowers endure when the rose-blossoms wither, 
And men that love lightly may die — but we?" 

And the same wind sang and the same waves whitened, 45 

And or ever the garden's last petals were shed, 

In the lips that had whispered, the eyes that had lightened, 
Love was dead. 

Or they loved their life through, and then went whither? 

And were one to the end — but what end who knows? 50 

Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither, 

As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose. 
Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them ? 

What love was ever as deep as a grave? 
They are loveless now as the grass above them 55 

Or the wave. 

All are at one now, roses and lovers. 

Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the sea. 

Not a breath of the time that has been hovers 

In the air now soft with a summer to be. 60 

Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter 
Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep. 

When as they that are free now of weeping and laughter 
We shall sleep. 

Here death may deal not again forever; 65 

Here change may come not till all change end. 

From the graves they have made they shall rise up never, 
Who have left naught living to ravage and rend. 

Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing, 

While the sun and the rain live, these shall be ; JO 

Till a last wind's breath, upon all these blowing, 
Roll the sea. 



ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 499 

Till the slow sea rise and the sheer clifif crumble. 

Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink, 
Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble 7$ 

The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink. 
Here now in his triumph where all things falter, 

Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread. 
As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, 

Death lies dead. 8a 

1876. 



THE SALT OF THE EARTH 

If childhood were not in the world, 

But only men and women grown; 
No baby-locks in tendrils curled. 

No baby-blossoms blown; 

Though men were stronger, women fairer, 5 

And nearer all delights in reach, 
And verse and music uttered rarer 

Tones of more godlike speech; 

Though the utmost life of life's best hours 

Found, as it cannot now find, words; 10 

Though desert sands were sweet as flowers 

And flowers could sing like birds, 

But children never heard them, never 

They felt a child's foot leap and run, — 
This were a drearier star than ever 15 

Yet looked upon the sun. 

1882. 



HOPE AND FEAR 

Beneath the shadow of dawn's aerial cope. 

With eyes enkindled as the sun's own sphere 
Hope from the front of youth in godlike cheer 
Looks Godward, past the shades where blind men grope 
Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope, 
And makes for joy the very darkness dear 
That gives her wide wings play; nor dreams that Fear 



500 ENGLISH POEMS 



At noon may rise and pierce the heart of Hope. 

Then, when the soul leaves off to dream and yearn, 

May Truth first purge her eyesight to discern lo 

What once being known leaves time no power to appal ; 
Till youth at last, ere yet youth be not, learn 

The kind wise word that falls from years that fall — 
"Hope thou not much, and fear thou not at all." 

1882. 

BEN JONSON 

Broad-based, broad- fronted, bounteous, multiform. 
With many a valley impleached with ivy and vine. 
Wherein the springs of all the streams run wine. 

And many a crag full-faced against the storm, 

The mountain where thy Muse's feet made warm 5 

Those lawns that revelled with her dance divine, 
Shines yet with fire as it was wont to shine 

From tossing torches round the dance a-swarm. 

Nor less, high-stationed on the grey grave heights, 
High-thoughted seers with heaven's heart-kindling lights 10 

Hold converse; and the herd of meaner things 
Knows, or by fiery scourge or fiery shaft, 
When wrath on thy broad brows has risen, and laughed. 

Darkening thy soul with shadow of thunderous wings. 

1882. 

THE SUNBOWS 

Spray of song that springs in April, light of love that laughs 

through May, 
Live and die and live forever : naught of all things far less fair 
Keeps a surer life than these that seem to pass like fire away. 
In the souls they live which are but all the brighter that they were ; 
In the hearts that kindle, thinking what delight of old was there. 5 
Wind that shapes and lifts and shifts them bids perpetual memory 

play 
Over dreams and in and out of deeds and thoughts which seem to 

wear 
Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames 

of spray. 



ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 501 

Dawn is wild upon the waters where we drink of dawn to-day : 
Wide, from wave to wave rekindling in rebound through radiant 

air, ID 

Flash the fires unwoven and woven again of wind that works in 

play. 
Working wonders more than heart may note or sight may wellnigh 

dare, 
Wefts of rarer light than colours rain from heaven, though this 

be rare. 
Arch on arch unbuilt in building, reared and ruined ray by ray, 
Breaks and brightens, laughs and lessens, even till eyes may hardly 

bear 15 

Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames 

of spray. 

Year on year sheds light and music, rolled and flashed from bay 

to bay 
Round the summer capes of Time and winter headlands keen and 

bare. 
Whence the soul keeps watch, and bids her vassal memory watch 

and pray, 
If perchance the dawn may quicken, or perchance the midnight 

spare. 20 

Silence quells not music, darkness takes not sunlight in her snare ; 
Shall not joys endure that perish ? Yea, saith dawn, though night 

say nay: 
Life on life goes out, but very life enkindles everywhere 
Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames 

of spray. 

Friend, were life no more than this is, well would yet the living 
fare. 25 

All aflower and all afire and all flung heavenward, who shall say 

Such a flash of life were worthless? This is worth a world of 
care — 

Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames 
of spray. 



502 ENGLISH POEMS 



ROBERT BROWNING 

He held no dream worth waking : so he said, 

He who stands now on death's triumphal steep, 
Awakened out of life wherein we sleep 

And dream of what he knows and sees, being dead. 

But never death for him was dark or dread : 

"Look forth" he bade the soul, and fear not. Weep, 
All ye that trust not in his truth, and keep 

Vain memory's vision of a vanished head 

As all that lives of all that once was he 

Save that which lightens from his word ; but we 
Who, seeing the sunset-coloured waters roll, 

Yet know the sun subdued not of the sea. 

Nor weep nor doubt that still the spirit is whole, 
And life and death but shadows of the soul. 
i88g. 1890. 



NOTES 



NOTES 

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES 

(i) "A poet by whose works, year after year, I was so enthusiastically delighted and 

inspired My obligations to Mr. Bowles were indeed important and for radical good. 

At a very premature age, even before my fifteenth year, I had bewildered myself in meta- 
physics and in theological controversy From this I was auspiciously withdrawn, 

.... chiefly .... by the genial influence of a style of poetry so tender and yet so manly, 
so natural and real and yet so dignified and harmonious, as the sonnets, etc., of Mr. Bowles." 
— Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817), chap. i. 

SAMUEL ROGERS 

(3) The Pleasures of Memory. Part I. 1-20, 69-96. Cf. Akenside's "Pleasures 
of Imagination" (1744), with regard to subject and title; with regard to style, cf. Goldsmith's 
"Deserted Village" (1770). 

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 

In the preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, in 1800, Wordsworth vrrote 
thus of poetry and of his purpose and method in the poems: 

"The principal object, then, proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and situ- 
ations from common Ufe, and to relate or describe them throughout, as far as was possible, 
in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them 
a certain coloring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the 
mind in an unusual aspect; and further, and above all, to make these incidents and 
situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws 
of our nature : chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of 
excitement. Humble and rustic Kfe was generally chosen, because in that condition the 
essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are 

less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language The language, 

too, of these men has been adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, 
from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust), because such men hourly communi- 
cate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived; and 
because, from their rank in society, and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse, 
being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in sim- 
ple and imelaborated expressions The reader will find that personifications of abstract 

ideas rarely occur in these volumes, and are utterly rejected as an ordinary device to elevate 
the style and raise it above prose. My purpose was to imitate, and, as far as possible, to 
adopt, the very language of men; and assuredly such personifications do not make any natural 
or regular part of that language. They are indeed a figiure of speech occasionally prompted 
by passion, and I have made use of them as such; but have endeavored utterly to reject 
them as a mechanical device of style, or as a family language which vrriters in metre seem to 

lay claim to by prescription There will also be found in these volumes little of what 

is usually called poetic diction; as much pains has been taken to avoid it as is ordinarily 
taken to produce it; this has been done for the reason already alleged, to bring my language 
nearer to the language of men; and further, because the pleasure which I have proposed to 
myself to impart is of a kind very different from that which is supposed by many persons 



5o6 ENGLISH POEMS 



to be the proper object of poetry. Without being culpably particular, I do not know how 
to give my reader a more exact notion of the style in which it was my wish and intention 
to write than by informing him that I have at all times endeavored to look steadily at my 
subject; consequently there is, I hope, in these poems little falsehood of description, and 

my ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective importance If in a poem 

there should be found a series of lines, or even a single line, in which the language, though 
naturally arranged, and according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that of 
prose, there is a numerous class of critics who, when they stumble upon these prosaisms, 
as they call them, imagine that they have made a notable discovery, and exult over the poet 
as over a man ignorant of his own profession. Now, these men would establish a canon of 
criticism which the reader will conclude he must utterly reject if he wishes to be pleased 
with these volumes. And it would be a most easy task to prove to him that not only the 
language of a large portion of every good poem, even of the most elevated character, must 
necessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no respect differ from that of good prose, 
but likewise that some of the most interesting parts of the best poems will be found to be 

strictly the language of prose when prose is well written We will go further. It may 

be safely affirmed that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the lan- 
guage of prose and metrical composition 

"The knowledge both of the poet and the man of science is pleasure; but the knowl- 
edge of the one cleaves to us as a necessary part of our existence, our natural and unalienable 
inheritance; the other is a personal and individual acquisition, slow to come to us, and by 
no habitual and direct sympathy connecting us with our fellow-beings. The man of science 
seeks truth as a remote and unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude. 
The poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence 
of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit 
of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science." 

Notes signed "W." are by Wordsworth, being chiefly those that he dictated in 1834 
to Miss Isabella Fenwick. 

(3) An Evening Walk. Lines 323T44, 365-78. The text of the first edition is given, 
the better to illustrate Wordsworth's early manner in nature poetry. "There is not an image 

in it which I have not observed The plan of it has not been confined to a particular 

walk or an individual place The country is idealized rather than described in any 

one of its local aspects." — W. 

(4) 28. aerial: in 1832, "spiritual." H 35. In 1836, "The sportive outcry of the mock- 
ing owl." 

(4) Simon Lee. "This old man had been huntsman to the squires of Alfoxden, 

.... The fact was as mentioned in the poem The expression when the hounds 

were out, 'I dearly love their voice,' was word for word from his own lips." — W. In the 
first edition the style was even more bald and prosaic in places, as in the following lines: 

Of years he has upon his back. 
No doubt, a burden weighty; 
He says he is three score and ten. 
But others say he 's eighty. 
A long blue livery-coat has he, 

That 's fair behind, and fair before 

His hunting feats have him bereft 
Of his right eye, as you may see. 

(8) Expostulation and Reply. "The lines entitled 'Expostulation and Reply,' and 
those which follow, arose out of conversation with a friend who was somewhat unreasonably 
attached to modem books of moral philosophy." — W., in the preface to Lyrical Ballads, first 
edition. H 30. co»i/er««^= communing; in this case, with the "mighty sum of things." 

(lo) Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey. "No poem of mine 
was composed under circumstances more pleasant for me to remember than this. I began 



NOTES 507 

it upon leaving Tintem, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as I was entering 
Bristol in the evening, after a ramble of four or five days, with my sister. Not a line of it 
was altered, and not any part of it written down till I reached Bristol." — W. K 29. purer 
mind: the comparison is not between two states of mind, but between mind, as piu:e spirit , 
and the body ("blood") and the emotions ("heart"). 

(11) 54. hung upon=weighed upon, oppressed, f 67-72. Cf. "To the Daisy": 

In youth from rock to rock I went, 
From hill to hill in discontent 
Of pleasure high and turbulent. 
Most pleased when most uneasy. 

{12) 85-111. Cf. "Ode: Intimations of Immortality," 175-203; "The Prelude," 
VIII. 340-56. 

(13) 125. »»/<"■»«= give form to, mold, animate, f 149. pasi existence: his own life 
in earlier years, when his love of nature was like hers now. 

(14) The SrMPLON Pass. Wordsworth crossed the Alps on foot in 1790. The 
lines are a part of "The Prelude " (VI. 621 ff.), but were first pubUshed separately. 

(15) Influence of Natural Objects. The lines are a part of "The Prelude" 
(I. 401 ff.), but were first published separately. 

(17) Lucy Gray. "Founded on a circumstance told me by my sister The 

way in which the incident was treated and the spiritualizing of the character might furnish 
hints for contrasting the imaginative influences which I have endeavored to throw over com- 
mon life with Crabbe's matter-of-fact style of treating subjects of the same kind." — W. 

(19) The Recluse. Lines 754-835. The passage is taken from the unfinished part of a 
long poem, to be called "The Recluse," of which "The Prelude" and "The Excursion" 
were to have been parts; see the preface to "The Excursion." 1(24. the bard: Milton, in 
Paradise Lost, VII. 30, 31: 

Still govern thou my song, 
Urania, and fit audience find, though few. 

(21) Michael. "The character and circimistances of Lvike were taken from a 

family to whom had belonged, many years before, the house we lived in at Townend 

The name of the Evening Star was not in fact given to this house, but to another on the 
same side of the valley." — W. In a letter (1801) to his friend Thomas Poole, Wordsworth 
wrote thus of the poem: "I have attempted to give a picture of a man, of strong mind and 
lively sensibility, agitated by two of the most powerful affections of the human heart: the 
parental affection, and the love of property (^landed property), including the feelings of in- 
heritance, home, and personal and family independence In writing it I had your 

character often before my eyes; and sometimes thought that I was delineating such a man 
as you yourself would have been under the same circumstances" (Knight's Life of Words- 
worth, I. 215). In a letter (1801) to Charles James Fox, the statesman, Wordsworth said: 
"In the two poems, 'The Brothers' and 'Michael,' I have attempted to draw a pictiure of 
the domestic affections as I know they exist amongst a class of men who are now almost 
confined to the North of England. They are small, independent proprietors of land, here 
called Statesmen, men of respectable education, who daily labor in their own little proper- 
ties Their Uttle tract of land serves as a kind of rallying point for their domestic 

feelings The two poems which I have mentioned were written with a view to show 

that men who do not wear fine clothes can feel deeply The poems are faithful copies 

from nature" (ibid., II. 4). f 2. Ghyll: "Ghyll, in the dialect of Cumberland and West- 
moreland, is a short, and, for the most part, a steep narrow valley, with a stream running 
through it." — W., in a note to "The Idle Shepherd Boys." 

(22) 24-26. Cf. "The Prelude," VIII. 345 ff. Wordsworth attributed his serene op- 
timism and his insight into the nobility of human nature partly to the fact that the first 



5c8 ENGLISH POEMS 



men in whom he became interested were of this superior shepherd class; see "The Prelude," 
VIII. 293 ff. 

(23) 62-77. Wordsworth's view of the character of the shepherd's love of nature is 
made still clearer by lines about Michael preserved in Dorothy Wordsworth's journal and 
printed in Knight's Life of Wordsworth (I. 388): 

No doubt if you in terms direct had asked 
Whether he loved the mountains, true it is 
That with blunt repetition of your words 
He might have stared at you, and said that they 
Were frightful to behold, but had you then 
Discovirsed with him .... 
Of his own business, and the goings on 
Of earth and sky, then truly had you seen 
That in his thoughts there were obscurities, 
Wonder and admiration, things that wrought 
' Not less than a religion in his heart. 

(27) 258. Richard Bateman: "The story alluded to is well known in the country." — W. 

(32) 448. Cf. 1.416. 

(35) London, 1802. K 4. hall and bower: the great room, and the private apartments 
(especially the women's), in a castle or mansion. 

(37^ The Solitary Reaper. Dorothy Wordsworth wrote, under date of September 
13, 1803, in her Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, that the poem was suggested by 
this sentence in Thomas Wilkinson's Tour in Scotland: "Passed a female who was reaping 
alone; she sung in Erse, as she bended over her sickle; the sweetest human voice I ever 
heard: her strains were tenderly melancholy, and felt deUcious, long after they were heard 
no more." Wordsworth, in a note to the poem, in 1807, added that the last line of the poem 
was taken verbatim from the prose work. 

(38) To the Men of Kent. England had declared war against France in May, 
1803; and at the time of the writing of the sonnet, in October, Napoleon seemed to be plan- 
ning to invade England. "The 'Men of Kent' is a technical expression applied to the inhabi- 
tants of that part of Kent who were never subdued in the Norman invasion, and who obtained 
glorious terms for themselves, on capitulation, receiving the confirmation of their own char- 
ters." — F. W. Robertson, Lectures and Addresses (1861). ^2. advance: probably a refer- 
ence to the fact that Kent projects out toward France, but, as Dowden suggests, the word 
may be used in the Shaksperean sense of "Uft up," with a reference to the chalk cliffs along 
the coast; cf. "haughty." H 13. Wordsworth's change of view about the French Revolu- 
tion, and some of the steps of the process, appear in the following passages from "The Prel- 
ude" (XI. 105-12; X. 263-65, 283-88; XI. 205-14, 350-60): 

O pleasant exercise of hope and joy ! 

For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood 

Upon our side, us who were strong in love. 

BUss was it in that dawn to be alive, 

But to be young was very heaven ! O times 

In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways 

Of custom, law, and statute took at once 

The attraction of a country in romance ! 

What, then, were my emotions, when in arms 
Britain put forth her freeborn strength in league. 
Oh, pity and shame ! with those confederate Powers ! 

I rejoiced. 

Yea, afterwards — truth most painful to record — 
Exulted, in the triumph of my soul. 
When Englishmen by thousands were o'erthrown, 
Left without glory on the field, or driven. 
Brave hearts ! to shameful flight. 



NOTES 509 

But now, become oppressors in their turn, 
Frenchmen had changed a war of self-defence 
For one of conquest, losing sight of all 
Which they had struggled for: up mounted now, 
Openly in the eye of Earth and Heaven, 
The scale of Liberty. I read her doom, 
With anger vexed, with disappointment sore, 
But not dismayed, nor taking to the shame 
Of a false prophet. 

Nature's self, 
By all varieties of human love 
Assisted, led me back through opening day 
To those sweet counsels between head and heart 
Whence grew that genuine knowledge, fraught with peace, 
Which, through the later sinkings of this cause. 
Hath still upheld me, and upholds me now 
In the catastrophe (for so they dream , 
And nothing less) when finally to close 
And seal up all the gains of France, a Pope 
Is summoned in to crown an Emperor. 

Cf. Coleridge's "France: an Ode." 

(38) She Was a Phantom of Delight. "The germ of this poem was four lines, 
composed as a part of the verses on the Highland Girl. Though beginning in this way, it 
was written from my heart, as is sufficiently obvious." — W. Cf. another reference to his 
wife in "The Prelude," XIV. 268 S.: 

She came, no more a phantom to adorn 
A moment, but an inmate of the heart. 
And yet a spirit, there for me enshrined 
To penetrate the lofty and the low. 

(39) 22. machine: perhaps used for "body," as in Hamlet, II. ii. 124; "I rather think 
the whole woman with all her household routine is conceived as the organism of which the 
thoughtful soul is the animating principle." — Dowden. 

(39) I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. 

(40) 21,22. Written by Mrs. Wordsworth. 

(40) Ode to Duty. "This ode is on the model of Gray's 'Ode to Adversity.'" — W. 
U 7. vain temptations = empty temptations, i. e., temptations to things which do not satisfy. 

(41) 37. unchartered=\miimited, in contrast to rights and privileges under a charter, 
which are limited to those specified. II38. Cf. "Nuns Fret not at Their Convent's Narrow 
Room," 1. 13. 1145-48. Wordsworth here seems to imify moral law and physical law, or 
at least to assume a close analogy between the two, as alike manifestations of the divine order 
and beauty, the basis of the welfare of all things whether material or spiritual. This view 
was the easier for him because of his belief that God was "deeply interfused" in nature. 

(41) Elegiac Stanzas. In memory of the poet's brother. Captain John Wordsworth, 
who went down with his ship in 1805. 

(42) 18. this: the world of the picture. 

(43) 54- Ihe kind=its kind; here, the human race. 

(44) Personal Talk. The last two of a series of four sonnets. 

(45) Ode: Intimations of Immortality. "Two years at least passed between the 

writing of the four first stanzas [11. 1-57] and the remaining part Nothing was more 

difficult for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my 

own being But it was not so much from feelings of animal vivacity that my difficulty 

came as from a sense of the indomitableness of the spirit within me I was often 

unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all 
that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many 
times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss 



Sio 



ENGLISH POEMS 



of idealism to the reality. At that time I was afraid of such processes. In later periods of 
life I have deplored, as we all have reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite character, and 
have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in the Unes, 

Obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things, 
Fallings from us, vanishings, etc. 

To that dream-like vividness and splendor which invest objects of sight in childhood, every 
one, I believe, if he would look back, could bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here; 
but having in the poem regarded it as presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence, I 
think it right to protest against a conclusion, which has given pain to some good and pious 
persons, that I meant to inculcate such a beKef. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recom- 
mended to faith as more than an element in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear 
in mind that, though the idea is not advanced in revelation, there is nothing there to contra- 
dict it, and the fall of man presents an analogy in its favor. Accordingly, a pre-existent 
state has entered into the popular creeds of many nations, and, among all persons acquainted 
with classic Uterature, is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy." — W. Cf. Plato's 
Phaedo, from which the following passage is taken: "And if we acquired this knowledge 
before we were born and were born having it, then we also knew before we were bom, and 
at the instant of birth, not only the equal or the greater or the less, but all other ideas; for 
we are not speaking only of equality absolute, but of beauty, good, justice, holiness, and all 

which we stamp with the name of essence But if the knowledge which we acquired 

before birth was lost by us at birth, and if afterward by the use of the senses we recovered 
that which we previously knew, will not that which we call learning be a process of recover- 
ing our knowledge, and may not this be rightly termed recollection by us?" — Jowett's 
translation. 

(46) 28. fields of sleep: "the yet reposeful, slumbering country-side; it is early morn- 
ing, and the land is still, as it were, resting." — J. W. Hales, Longer English Poems (1872). 
U 58-70. Cf. the following lines from Henry Vaughan's " Retreat" (1650): 

Happy those early days, when I 
Shined in my angel infancy ! 
Before I understood this place 
Appointed for my second race. 
Or taught my soul to fancy aught 
But a white, celestial thought; 
When yet I had not walked above 
A mile or two from my first love. 
And looking back — ^at that short space — 
Could see a glimpse of His bright face; 
When on some gilded cloud or flower 
My gazing soul would dwell an hour, 
And in those weaker glories spy 
Some shadows of eternity. 

(47) 72. Nature's priest: the emphasis is not upon a priest's sacrificial function in 
worship but upon his greater closeness to God and superior insight into divine truth; see 
the next two lines. 

(48) 103, 104. The poet apparently had in mind Jaques's speech in As You Like It 
(II. vii. 139 ff.), on the seven ages of man. humorous stage: "humorous" is used in the 
Elizabethan sense (perhaps for that reason the phrase is quoted), and refers to the humors — 
or casts of mind, tempers, dominant moods — of men; the idea of the comic is absent; cf. the 
modern phrase, "I am not in the humor for it." 

(49) 141,142. questionings of sense: doubts as to the reality of material things revealed 
by the senses; see Wordsworth's statement above. H 143. Fallings from us, vanishings: 
this does not refer to the passing away of "a glory from the earth," but to a sense of the unreality 
of the material world, which seems to fall away and vanish into mere thought. In addition 



NOTES 511 

to the poet's words quoted above, the following statement, made by him in his old age to a 
friend, in interpretation of the phrase, is conclusive: "There was a time in my life when I 
had to push against something that resisted, to be sure that there was anything outside of me. 
I was sure of my own mind; everything else fell away, and vanished into thought" (Knight's 
edition of Wordsworth's poems, IV. 58). K 145. worlds not realized: this present world of 
matter, which in such moods does not seem real. H 154, 155. The lines admit of two inter- 
pretations: (i) our high spiritual instincts make our noisy years seem only moments in the 
Eternal Silence, and of little significance; (2) these instincts redeem our noisy years and make 
even them seem a part (though of coiirse a very small part) of the Eternal Silence. The 
latter interpretation sorts rather better with the stanza as a whole, which exalts human life, 
not depreciates it. But the former is the more natural, or at least the more obvious, interpre- 
tation, and is favored by the word "moments," which, if the second interpretation be correct, 
ought rather to be "portions." The first interpretation is also made more probable by Unes 
in Wordsworth's poem, "On the Power of Sound": 

O Silence! are man's noisy years 
No more than moments of thy life ? 

H 158. Nor man nor boy: a condensed expression for "manhood " and "boyhood," with the 
dulling of spiritual vision as yesirs increase; cf. 11. 66-76. II 161. in a season of calm weather: 
cf. "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey," U. 41-40. 

(50) 183-86. Cf. the same, 11. 86-102. If 187-93. Cf. the same, 11. 102-07, IS3-5S. 
H 196-99. The lines have been variously interpreted. "A sunset reflection. The sun, 
'like a strong man going forth to his race,' has now reached the goal and won the palm, 
and so with the life of a man when death comes." — Dowden. "The meaning seems to be — 
The falling sun, with his bright train of colored clouds, yet brings the sobering thought of the 
race of men who, even in the poet's lifetime, had sunk to their setting, that their fellows might 
lord it in the zenith, crowned with victorious palm." — H. H. Turner, Selections from Words- 
worth (1874.) It is somewhat against both these explanations that they take the setting 
sun as a symbol of human death, whereas Wordsworth in his early poems seldom or never 
employs nature in this analogical way. May not the meaning be simpler and more literal ? 
The main thought in this stanza is that the poet still loves nature, partly because it is now 
associated in his mind with human life. This is the thought with which the stanza ends; 
and in the lines about the sunset is another illustration of it. As the poet looks at the setting 
sun, the clouds about it take coloring from his thoughts of human life — the coloring is sober, 
because human life is serious and on the whole sad. The close of the day suggests the Ufe 
of men during the day, in which they have run another day's race and won victories. On 
this interpretation "man's mortality" means "man's mortal life"; ci. Macbeth (II. iii. 97, 
98): "From this instant there's nothing serious in mortality." H 200-03. The lines are 
often taken as two disconnected couplets, whereas the first two lines are really introductory 
to the last two. Professor Dowden well says: "These lines have been often quoted as 
an illustration of Wordsworth's sensibility to external nature; in reaUty, they testify to his 
enriching the sentiment of nature with feeling derived from the heart of man and from 
the experience of human Ufe." Cf. "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,' ' 
11. 89-94. 

(50) Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge. Wordsworth visited Cam- 
bridge in 1S20, and this sonnet was probably written soon after. K i. royal saint: Henry 
VI, who founded King's College in 1441, and probably laid the comer-stone of the chapel, 
which is generally considered one of the finest specimens of Gothic architecture. 

(51) To A Skylark. Another stanza, coming second, Wordsworth transferred in 1845 
to "A Morning Exercise." 

(52) II. This use of things in nature as symbols of things in human life is rare in Words- 
worth's earlier poems, which teach rather the direct, dynamic influence of nature upon man. 



512 ENGLISH POEMS 



In "The Prelude" (XIV. 315-19) he recognizes the symbolic use of nature as legitimate^ 
but gives it a subordinate place: 

Nature's secondary grace 

Hath hitherto been barely touched upon, 

The charm more superficial that attends 

Her works, as they present to Fancy's choice 

Apt illustrations of the moral world. 

This use of nature is more frequent in the later poems; see "A Flower Garden," "Once I 
could Hail," "This Lawn, a Carpet AU Alive,'' "The Primrose of the Rock," etc. 

Contemporary Criticism 

Admirable as this poem ["The Female Vagrant"] is, the author seems to discover still 
superior powers in the "Lines Written near Tintern Abbey." On reading this production, 
it is impossible not to lament that he should ever have condescended to write such pieces as 
"The Last of the Flock," "The Convict," and most of the ballads. In the whole range of 
English poetry, we scarcely recollect anything superior to a part of the following passage. 
[Quotation of 11. 66-112.] The "experiment," we think, has failed, not because the language 
of conversation is Uttle adapted to "the purposes of poetic pleasure," but because it has been 
tried upon uninteresting subjects. Yet every piece discovers genius; and, ill as the author has 
frequently employed his talents, they certainly rank him with the best of living poets. — The 
Critical Review, October, 1798, on Lyrical Ballads. (The article was written by Southey.) 

Though we have been extremely entertained with the fancy, the facility, and (in general) 
the sentiments of these pieces, we cannot regard them as poetry of a class to be cultivated at 
the expense of a higher species of versification unknown in our language at the time when our 
elder writers, whom this author condescends to imitate, wrote their ballads. Would it not be 
degrading poetry, as well as the English language, to go back to the barbarous and uncouth 
numbers of Chaucer ? Suppose, instead of modernizing the old bard, that the sweet and pol- 
ished measures, on lofty subjects, of Dryden, Pope, and Gray, were to be transmuted into the 
dialect and versification of the fourteenth century, should we be gainers by the retrogradation ? 
.... When we confess that our author has had the art of pleasing and interesting in no 
common way by his natural deUneation of human passions, human characters, and human 
incidents, we must add that these effects were not produced by the poetry: -via have been as 
much affected by pictures of misery and unmerited distress, in prose. The elevation of soul, 
when it is Ufted into the higher regions of imagination, affords us a delight of a different kind 

Irom the sensation which is produced by the detail of common incidents Distress 

from poverty and want is admirably described in the "true story of Goody Blake and Harry 
Gill"; but are we to imagine that Harry was bewitched by Goody Blake? The hardest 
heart must be softened into pity for the poor old woman; and yet, if all the poor are to help 
themselves, and supply their wants from the possessions of their neighbors, what imaginary 
wants and real anarchy would it not create ? Goody Blake should have been reUeved out 
of the two millions annually allowed by the state to the poor of this country, not by the 
plunder of an individual. "Lines on the First Mild Day of March" abound with beautiful 
.•sentiments from a polished mind. "Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman," is the portrait, admir- 
ably painted, of every huntsman who, by toil, age, and infirmities, is rendered unable to 
guide and govern his canine family. "Anecdote for Fathers": of this the dialogue is ingen- 
ious and natural; but the object of the child's choice and the inferences are not quite obvious, 

"We are Seven": innocent and pretty infantine prattle " Lines Written near Tintern 

Abbey": the reflections of no common mind; poetical, beautiful, and philosophical, but 
somewhat tinctured with gloomy, narrow, and unsociable ideas of seclusion from the com- 
merce of the world, as if men were born to live in woods and wilds, unconnected with each 

other So much genius and originality are discovered in this publication that we wish 

to see another from the same hand, written on more elevated subjects and in a more cheerful 
disposition. — The Monthly Review, June, 1799, on Lyrical Ballads. 



NOTES 513 

The Lyrical Ballads were unquestionably popular; and, we have no hesitation in saying, 
deservedly popular; for in spite of their occasional vulgarity, affectation, and silliness, they 
were undoubtedly characterized by a strong spirit of originality, of pathos, and natural feel- 
ing It was precisely because the perverseness and bad taste of this new school was 

combined with a great deal of genius and of laudable feeling, that we were afraid of their spread- 
ing and gaining ground among us, and that we entered into the discussion with a degree of 
zeal and animosity which some might think unreasonable toward authors to whom so much 

merit had been conceded Their pecuUarities of diction alone are enough, perhaps, 

to render them ridiculous; but the author before us really seems anxious to court this literary 
martyrdom by a dexice still more infallible, — we mean, that of connecting his most lofty, 
tender, or impassioned conceptions with objects and incidents which the greater part of his 

readers will probably persist in thinking low, silly, or uninteresting All the world 

laughs at elegiac stanzas to a sucking-pig — a hymn on washing-day — sonnets to one's grand- 
mother — or Pindarics on gooseberry-pye; and yet, we are afraid, it will not be quite easy to 
convince Mr. Wordsworth that the same ridicule must infallibly attach to most of the pathetic 

pieces in these volumes The first is a kind of ode "To the Daisy," — very flat, feeble, 

and affected; and in a diction as artificial, and as much encumbered with heavy expletives, 

as the theme of an unpracticed school-boy Further on we find an "Ode to Duty," in 

which the lofty vein is very unsuccessfully attempted The two last Unes seem to be 

utterly without meaning; at least we have no sort of conception in what sense Duty 

can be said to keep the old skies fresh and the stars from wrong Then we have 

elegiac stanzas "To the Spade of a Friend," beginning, "Spade! with which Wilkinson 
hath tilled his lands," but too dull to be quoted any further. After this there is a "Minstrel's 
Song, on the Restoration of Lord Clifford, the Shepherd," which is in a very different strain of 
poetry; and then the volume is wound up with an " O de," with no other title but the motto 
Paulo majora caiiamus. This is, beyond all doubt, the most illegible and unintelligible part 
of the publication. We can pretend to give no analysis or explanation of it ; our readers must 
make what they can of the following extracts. [Quotation of " Ode : Intimations of Immortality," 
11. 51-57, 129-67.] .... When we look at these ["On the Extinction of the Venetian 
Republic," and "I Grieved for Buonaparte"] and many still finer passages, in the writings 
of this author, it is impossible not to feel a mixture of indignation and compassion at that 
strange infatuation which has bound him up from the fair exercise of his talents, and withheld 
from the public the many excellent productions that would otherwise have taken the place of 
the trash now before us. Even in the worst of these productions there are, no doubt, occasional 
little traits of delicate feeling and original fancy; but these are quite lost and obscured in the 

mass of childishness and insipidity with which they are incorporated We think there 

is every reason to hope that the lamentable consequences which have resulted from Mr. Words- 
worth's open violation of the established laws of poetry will operate as a v/holesome warning 
to those who might otherwise have been seduced by his example, and be the means of restoring 
to that ancient and venerable code its due honor and authority. — The Edinburgh Review, 
October, 1807, on Poems, by William Wordsworth, 1807. (The article was written by Francis 
Jeffrey.) 

This will never do ! It bears, no doubt, the stamp of the author's heart and fancy, but 
unfortunately not half so visibly as that of his peculiar system. His former poems were intended 
to recommend that system, and to bespeak favor for it by their individual merit; but this, we 
suspect, must be recommended by the system, and can only expect to succeed where it has 
been previously estabUshed. It is longer, weaker, and tamer than any of Mr. Wordsworth's 
other productions; with less boldness of originality, and less even of that extreme simplicity 
and lowliness of tone which wavered so prettily, in the Lyrical Ballads, between silHness and 
pathos. We have imitations of Cowper and even of Milton here; and grafted on the natural 
drawl of the Lakers, and all diluted into harmony by that profuse and irrepressible wordiness 
which deluges all the blank verse of this school of poetry, and lubricates and weakens the 



514 ENGLISH POEMS 



whole structure of their style We now see clearly, however, how the case stands; and, 

making up our minds, though with the most sincere pain and reluctance, to consider him as 
finally lost to the good cause of poetry, shall endeavor to be thanlcful for the occasional gleams 
of tenderness and beauty which the natural force of his imagination and affections must 
still shed over all his productions, and to which we shall ever turn with delight, in spite of the 
affectation and mysticism and prolixity with which they are so abundantly contrasted. — 
The Edinburgh Review, November, 1814, on "The Excursion." (The article was vnitten 
by Francis Jeffrey.) 

The first characteristic, though only occasional, defect which I appear to myself to find 
in these poems is the inconstancy of the style. Under this name I refer to the sudden and 
unprepared transitions from Unes or sentences of peculiar felicity (at all events striking and 
original) to a style not only unimpassioned but undistinguished. He sinks too often and too 
abruptly to that style which I should place in the second division of language, dividing it into 
the three species: first, that which is pecul^^r to poetry; second, that which is only proper in 

prose; and third, the neutral, or common to both The second defect I could generalize 

with tolerable accuracy, if the reader will pardon an uncouth and new-coined word. There 
is, I should say, not seldom a matter-of-factness in certain poems. This may be divided into, 
first, a laborious minuteness and fidelity in the representation of objects and their positions, 
as they appeared to the poet himself: secondly, the insertion of accidental circumstances, in 
order to the full explanation of his living characters, their dispositions and actions — which 
circumstances might be necessary to establish the probability of a statement in real life, where 
nothing is taken for granted by the hearer, but appear superfluous in poetry, where the reader 

is willing to believe for his own sake To these defects .... I may oppose .... the 

following (for the most part correspondent) excellences. First, an austere purity of language 
both grammatically and logically; in short, a perfect appropriateness of the words to the mean- 
ing The second characteristic excellence of Mr. Wordsworth's works is a correspondent 

Weight and sanity of the thoughts and sentiments, won, not from books, but from the poet's 

own meditative observation. They are fresh, and have the dew upon them Third, 

.... the sinewy strength and originality of single lines and paragraphs: the frequent 

cttriosa felicilas of his diction Fourth, the perfect truth of nature in his images and 

descriptions as taken immediately from nature, and proving a long and genial intimacy with 
the very spirit which gives the physiognomic expression to all the works of nature. Like a 
green field reflected in a calm and perfectly transparent lake, the image is distinguished from 

the reality only by its greater softness and luster Fifth, a meditative pathos, a union 

of deep and subtle thought with sensibility; a sympathy with man as man — the sympathy, 
indeed, of a contemplator rather than a fellow-sufferer or co-mate {spectator, haud parti- 
ceps), but of a contemplator from whose view no difference of rank conceals the sameness of 
the nature; no injuries of wind or weather, of toil, or even of ignorance, wholly disguise 

the human face divine Lastly, and pre-eminently, I challenge for this poet the 

gift of imagination in the highest and strictest sense of the word. In the play of fancy, 

Wordsworth, to my feeUngs, is not always graceful, and sometimes recondite But in 

imaginative power he stands nearest of all modern writers to Shakespeare and Milton; and 
yet in a kind perfectly unborrowed and his own. To employ his own words, which are at once 
an instance and an illustration, he does indeed to all thoughts and to all objects 

add the gleam, 
The light that never was on sea or land, 
The consecration and the poet's dream. 

^Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817), chap. xxii. 

Criticism of the puerile and prosaic in Wordsworth's poetry took the form of satirical 
imitation in "The Baby's Debut' (in Rejected Addresses, 1812, by Horace and James Smith), 
of which the following is a part: 



NOTES 



515 



(Spoken in the character of Nancy Lake, a girl eight years of age, who is drawn upon the 
Stage in a child's chaise by Samuel Hughes, her uncle's porter.) 

My brother Jack was nine in May, 
And I was eight on New-year's day; 

So in Kate Wilson's shop 
Papa (he 's my papa and Jack's) 
Bought me, last week, a doll of wax. 

And brother Jack a top. 

Jack 's in the pouts, and this it is, — 
He thinks mine came to more than his; 

So to my drawer he goes, 
Takes out the doll, and, O my stars! 
He pokes her head between the bars, 

And melts off half her nose! 

Quite cross, a bit of string I beg. 
And tie it to his peg-top's peg, 

And bang, with might and main, 
Its head against the parlour door; 
Off flies the head, and hits the floor, 

And breaks a window-pane. 



Aunt Hannah heard the window break, 
And cried, "O naughty Nancy Lake, 

Thus to distress your aunt: 
No Drury Lane for you to-day!" 
And while papa said, "Pooh, she may!" 

Mamma said, "No, she shan't!'' 

Well, after many a sad reproach, 
They got into a hackney coach. 

And trotted down the street. 
I saw them go: one horse weis blind. 
The taDs of both hung down behind. 

Their shoes were on their feet. 

The chaise in which poor brother Bill 
Used to be drawn to Pentonville, 

Stood in the lumber-room: 
I wiped the dust from off the top. 
While Molly mopped it with a mop, 

And brushed it with a broom. 

My uncle's porter, Samuel Hughes, 
Came in at six to black the shoes 

(I always talk to Sam); 
So what does he but takes and drags 
Me in the chaise along the flags. 

And leaves me where I am. 

My father's walls are made of brick, 
But not so tall and not so thick 

As these; and, goodness me! 
My father's beams are made of wood. 
But never, never half so good 

As those that now I see. 

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 

Coleridge defined poetry as follows: 

"Poetry is not the proper antithesis to prose, but to science. Poetry is opposed to science, 
and prose to metre. The proper and immediate object of science is the acquirement or com- 
munication of truth; the proper and immediate object of poetry is the communication of 
immediate pleasure. This definition is useful; but as it would include novels and other works 



5i6 ENGLISH POEMS 



of fiction, which yet we do not call poems, there must be some additional character by which 
poetry is not only divided from opposites but likewise distinguished from disparate, though 
similar, modes of composition. Now, how is this to be effected? In animated prose the 
beauties of nature, and the passions and accidents of human nature, are often expressed in 
that natural language v/hich the contemplation of them would suggest to a pure and benevolent 
mind; yet still neither we nor the writers call such a work a poem, though no work could 
deserve that name which did not include all this, together with something else. What is this ? 
It is that pleasurable emotion, that peculiar state and degree of excitement, which arises in 
the poet himself in the act of composition; and in order to understand this, we must combine 
a more than ordinary sympathy with the objects, emotions, or incidents contemplated 
by the poet, consequent on a more than common sensibility, with a more than ordi- 
nary activity of the mind in respect of the fancy and the imagination. Hence is produced 
a more vivid reflection of the truths of nature and of the human heart, united with a 
constant activity modifying and correcting these truths by that sort of pleasurable 
emotion which the exertion of all our faculties gives in a certain degree, but which can 
only be felt in perfection under the fuU play of those powers of mind which are spon- 
taneous rather than voluntary, and in which the efifort required bears no proportion to the 
activity enjoyed. This is the state which permits the production of a highly pleasurable whole 
of which each part shall also communicate for itself a distinct and conscious pleasure; and 
hence arises the definition, which I trust is now intelligible, that poetry, or rather a poem, is a 
species of composition, opposed to science as having intellectual pleasure for its object, and 
as attaining its end by the use of language natural to us in a state of excitement; but dis- 
tinguished from other species of composition, not excluded by the former criterion, by per- 
mitting a pleasure from the whole consistent with a consciousness of pleasure from the com- 
ponent parts; and the perfection of which is to communicate from each part the greatest 
immediate pleasure compatible with the largest sum of pleasiu-e on the whole. This, of 
coirrse, will vary with the different modes of poetry; and that splendor of particular lines, 
which would be worthy of admiration in an impassioned elegy or a short indignant satire, 
would be a blemish and proof of vile taste in a tragedy or an epic poem. 

"It is remarkable, by the way, that Milton in three incidental words has implied all 
which for the purposes of more distinct apprehension, which at first must be slow-paced in 
order to be distinct, I have endeavored to develop in a precise and strictly adequate definition. 
Speaking of poetry, he says, as in a parenthesis, 'which is simple, sensuous, passionate.' 
.... Had these three words only been properly understood by, and present in the minds of, 
general readers, not only almost a library of false poetry would have been either precluded or 
still-born, but, what is of more consequence, works truly excellent and capable of enlarging 
the understanding, warming and purifying the heart, and placing in the center of the whole 
being the germs of noble and manUke actions, would have been the common diet 
of the intellect instead. For the first condition, simplicity — while, on the one hand, it 
distinguishes poetry from the arduous processes of science laboring towards an end not yet 
arrived at, and supposes a smooth and finished road, on which the reader is to walk onward 
easily, with streams murmuring by his side, and trees and flowers and human dwellings to 
make his journey as delightful as the object of it is desirable, instead of having to toil with 
the pioneers and painfully make the road on which others are to travel, — precludes, on the 
other hand, every affectation and morbid peculiarity: the second condition, sensuousness, 
insures that framework of objectivity, that definiteness and articulation of imagery, and that 
modification of the images themselves, without which poetry becomes flattened into mere 
didactics of practice, or evaporated into a hazy, unthoughtful day-dreaming; and the third 
condition, passion, provides that neither thought nor imagery shall be simply objective, but 
that the passio vera of humanity shall warm and animate both." — Lectures and Notes of 1818, 
Section i. 

(54) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. "During the first year that Mr. Words- 



NOTES 517 

worth and I were neighbors, our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points 
of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the 
truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colors of 
imagination. The sudden charm which accidents of Hght and shade, which moonlight or 
sunset, diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability 
of combining both. These are the poetry of nature. The thought suggested itself (to which 
of us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, 
the incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural; and the excellence aimed 
at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions 

as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real For the 

second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary Ufe In this idea originated 

the plan of the Lyrical Ballads; in which it was agreed that my endeavors should be directed 
to persons and characters supernatural or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our 
inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows 
of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic 
faith. Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his object to give 
the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the super- 
natural, by awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom and directing it to 

the loveUness and the wonders of the world before us With this view I wrote 'The 

Ancient Mariner.' " — Coleridge, Biographia Literaria (1817), chap. xiv. "In the course 
of this walk was planned the poem of 'The Ancient Mariner,' founded on a dream, as Mr. 
Coleridge said, of his friend Mr. Cruikshank. Much the greatest part of the story was 
Mr. Coleridge's invention, but certain parts I suggested: for example, some crime was to 
be committed which should bring upon the Old Navigator, as Coleridge afterwards dehghted 
to call him, the spectral persecution, as a consequence of that crime and his own wander- 
ings. I had been reading in Shelvocke's Voyages, a day or two before, that, while doubling 
Cape Horn, they frequently saw albatrosses in that latitude, the largest sort of sea-fowl, some 
extending their wings twelve or thirteen feet. ' Suppose,' said I, ' you represent him as having 
killed one of these birds on entering the South Sea, and that the tutelary spirits of these regions 
take upon them to avenge the crime.' The incident was thought fit for the purpose and 
adopted accordingly. I also suggested the navigation of the ship by the dead men, but do not 

recollect that I had anything more to do with the scheme of the poem We began 

the composition together on that, to me, memorable evening. I furnished two or three lines 
at the beginning of the poem, in particular. 

And listened like a three years' child; 
The Mariner had his will." 

— Dictated by Wordsworth to Miss Fenwick in 1843. "When .... Mr. Wordsworth 
was last in London, soon after the appearance of De Quincey's papers in Tail's Magazine 
[in 1834-3 s], he dined with me, .... and made the following statement, which, I am 
quite sure, I give to you correctly: 'The Ancient Mariner' was founded on a strange dream, 

which a friend of Coleridge had, who fancied he saw a skeleton ship, with figures in it 

Besides the lines, .... 



I wrote the stanza, . 



And thou art long, and lank, and brown, 
As is the ribbed sea-sand, 



He holds him with his glittering eye — 
The Wedding Guest stood still, 
And listens like a three years' child: 
The Mariner hath his will. 



and four or five lines more in different parts of the poem, which I could not now pxaint out." 
— Alexander Dyce, in a letter to H. N. Coleridge, published in the 1852 edition of Coleridge's 
works. "Mrs. Barbauld once told me that she admired 'The Ancient Mariner' very much. 



Si8 



ENGLISH POEMS 



but that there were two faults in it — it was improbable, and had no moral. As for the prob- 
ability, I owned that that might admit some question; but as to the want of a moral, I told her 
that in my own judgment the poem had too much, and that the only or chief fault, if I might 
say so, was the obtrusion of the moral sentiment so openly on the reader as a principle or 
cause of action in a work of such pure imagination." — Coleridge, Table Talk, May 31, 1830. 

The poem was printed in Lyrical Ballads, in 1798. The text was much changed in the 
second edition of the ballads, in 1800, and some changes were made in subsequent editions 
of the poem. The marginal notes were added in 1817. The complete text of the first edi- 
tion may be found in J. D. Campbell's edition of Coleridge's poems. This first form of the 
poem had many archaisms, in imitation of the old ballads: "Ancyent Marinere," "ne" for 
"nor," "withouten," "ee" for "eye,' "yspread," etc.; most of these were changed in the 
second edition. A good many phrases and lines and some whole stanzas, in the first edi- 
tion, were modified or dropped in subsequent editions; specimens of these changes are given 
below. 

(54) 12. In i7q8, "Or my staff shall make thee skip." E}tsoons=aX once (literally, 
"soon after"; "aft," or "eft," is the positive, of which "after" is the comparative; cf. "aft" 
in nautical phraseology, meaning "behind," or "following"). 

(56) 51-7°- Mr. Ivor James, in The Source of "The Ancient Mariner'^ (i8go), argues 
that Coleridge got material for the poem from Captain Thomas James's Strange and Dan- 
gerous Voyage (1633). The book was in the Bristol city library, of which Coleridge was 
"a regular frequenter" the year before the poem was written. The following sentences are 
from The Strange and Dangerous Voyage: "We had Ice not farre off about vs, and some 
pieces as high as our Top-mast-head;" "The Ice ... . crackt all ouer the Bay with a 
fearefuU noyse;" "These great pieces that came aground began to breake with a most ter- 
rible thundering noyse; " "This morning .... we vnfastened our Ship and came to saile, 
steering betwixt great pieces of Ice that were a-ground in 40 fad., and twice as high as our 
top-mast head." — Hakluyt Society's Publications, No. 89 (1894). II67. In 1798, "The 
Mftrineres gave it biscuit-worms." 

(58) 143-46. Not in the 1798 text, where Part III began abruptly, "I saw a some- 
thing in the Sky." 

(5P) 164. they for joy did grin. "I took the thought of 'grinning for joy,' in that poem, 
from poor Burnett's remark to rae, when we had climbed to the top of Plinlimmon, and 
were nearly dead with thirst. We could not speak from the constriction, till we found a little 
puddle under a stone. He said to me, 'You grinned like an idiot !' He had done the same." 
— Coleridge, Table Talk, May 31, 1830. "The mouth-spume changes to a tough collodion- 
like coating, which compresses and contracts the lips in a sardonic smile, changing to a canine 
grin." — "Thirst in the Desert," The Atlantic Monthly, April, 1898. K 189. After this line 
the 1798 text had the following stanza: 



His bones were black with many a crack, 

All black and bare, I ween; 
Jet-black and bare, save where with rust 
Of mouldy damps and charnel crust 

They 're patched with purple and green, 

(60) 193, 194. In 1798, 

And she is far liker Death than he; 
Her flesh makes the still air cold. 

K igS. After this line the 1798 text had the following stanza: 

A guste of wind sterte up behind 
And whistled through his bones; 

Thro' the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth 
Half-whistles and half-groans. 

II199, 200, 203-08. Not in the 1798 text. 



NOTES 519 

'(61) 242. rotting: in 1708, "eldritch." 

(63) 297. silly. It is difl&cult to assign an exact meaning to the word here. Perhaps 
Coleridge had no precise sense in mind, using the word chiefly for its archaic flavor. Its 
earUest meaning was " blessed " (O.E. " saelig ")", then it acquired the senses of "innocent," 
"harmless," "poor, pitiable," "helpless," "foolish," etc. Spenser uses it in the sense of 
"helpless": "my silly barke was tos-sed sore" ("Amoretti," Ixiii); and that meaning, or 
"poor, pitiable," fits here as well as any. 

(64) 347-49. It is possible that in addition to Wordsworth's suggestion that the ship 
should be navigated by the dead men, The Letter of Saint Paulinus to Macarius (1618) gave 
Coleridge a hint about animating the dead bodies with the spirits of angels. The letter 
tells of a wonderful voyage, in which one old man, sole survivor of the crew, was assisted in 
the navigation of a ship by Christ and the angels: "The mariner would rouse himself but 
scarce could he leap forward when he saw that angelic hands were busy about his task. No 
sooner did he touch a rope than the sail ran along the yard and stood swelling out, the mizzen 

was set, and the ship made way Sometimes, indeed, it was vouchsafed him to behold 

an armed band — one may suppose of heavenly soldiers — who kept their watches on the deck 
and acted in all points as seamen. What crew, indeed, but a crew of angels was worthy to 
work that vessel which was steered by the Pilot of the world ?" — The Gentleman's Magazine, 
October, 1853. 

(65) 372. After this line came four stanzas in 1798, which were omitted in 1800; the 
last six lines were as follows: 

The Marineres all returned to work 
As silent as beforne. 

The Marineres all 'gan pull the ropes, 

But look at me they n'old: 
Thought I, I am as thin as air — 

They cannot me behold. 

(66) 416,417. Cf. Sir John Davies's "Orchestra" (1596), St. xlix, 11. 4, s: 

For his [the sun's] great crystal eye is always cast 
Up to the Moon, and on her fixed fast. 

(68) 475. After this line came five stanzas in 1798, which were omitted in 1800. The 
first stanza was nearly the same as 11. 480-83. The third stanza was this: 

They Ufted up their stiff right arms, 

They held them strait and tight; 
And each right-arm burnt like a torch, 

A torch that 's borne upright. 
Their stony eye-balls glittered on 

In the red and smoky light. 

(70) S3S- ii^-<oi= ivy-bush. 

(71) 582-85. In 1798 as follows: 

Since then at an uncertain hour. 

Now ofttimes and now fewer. 
That anguish comes and makes me tell 

My ghastly aventure. 

[(72) France: an Ode. The ode was occasioned by France's invasion of Switzerland 
in 1798. For a similar change of view regarding France and the French Revolution, see the 
note on Wordsworth's "To the Men of Kent." The metrical scheme is the same in aU the 
stanzas, although the indentation of the lines is not. 

(73) 43- Blasphemy's loud scream: "On the 10th of November [1793], the Convention 
was invited by the Commune of Paris to celebrate the Feast of Reason in the church of Notre 
Dame; an actress, Mdlle. Maillard, was borne in triumph even to the altar. 'Legislators,' 
cried Chaumette, 'fanaticism has given way; it has given place to Reason, its blinking eyes 



520 



ENGLISH POEMS 



have not been able to support the brightness of its Hght; an immense people have assembled 
under these gothic arches, which for the first time have served as an echo to the truth." — 
Guizot's History of France. 

(74) 66. Helvetia's: "Helvetia" was the Late Latin name for Switzerland (from 
"Helvetii," the Romans' name for the inhabitants of that region). lI8s-ios. In an "Argu- 
ment" prefixed to the ode in r3o2, the fifth stanza is summarized thus: "An address to Liberty, 
in which the poet expresses his conviction that those feelings and that grand ideal of freedom 
which the mind attains by its contemplation of its individual nature and of the sublime sur- 
rounding objects (see stanza the first) do not belong to men as a society, nor can possibly be 
either gratified or realized under any form of human government, but belong to the individual 
man, so far as he is pure and inflamed with the love and adoration of God in nature." 

(75) KuBLA Khan. "In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been 
prescribed, from the effects of which he [the author] fell asleep in his chair at the moment 
that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchases Pil- 
grimage: 'Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden there- 
unto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a waU.' The author continued 
for about tliree hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time 
he has the most vivid confidence that he could not have composed less than from two to three 
hundred Unes; if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before 
him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sen- 
sation or consciousness of effort. On awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recol- 
lection of the whole, and, taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down 
the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person 
on business .... and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room found, 
to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim 
recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten 
scattered hnes and images, all the rest had passed away." — Preface to the poem, in 1816. 
The passage that Coleridge quotes loosely from memory is the following: "In Xaindu did 
Cublai Can build a stately Pallace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine grround with a wall, 
wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightfull Streames, and all sorts of beasts of 
chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure." — Purchas his 
Pilgrimage (1614, 2d ed.), Book IV, chap. xiii. Professor Lane Cooper, in Modern Philology, 
January, 1906, throws light on the question why, in a poem the scene of which is Tartary, 
Coleridge brought in an Abyssinian maid, "singing of Mount Abora." Professor Cooper 
thinks that "Abora" is probably a variant of "Amara," a hill in Abyssinia and the seat of 
a terrestrial paradise Uke that described in the poem; hence the reference to it, for (as Cole- 
ridge impUes in 11. 42-47) the maid's description of the one paradise would help him to describe 
the other. The article also contributes to a better understanding of the poem as a whole, of 
which Professor Cooper says, "This might preferably be termed a dream of the terrestrial, 
or even of the 'false,' paradise; since, aside from its unworthy, acquiescent admission of 
demoniac love within so-called 'holy' precincts, it reads hke an arras of reminiscences from 
several accounts of natural or enchanted parks, and from various descriptions of that elusive 
and danger-fraught garden which mystic geographers have studied to locate from Florida to 
Cathay." Professor Cooper points out that Coleridge could have found a description of 
Mount Amara in the book he was reading when he fell asleep, for a whole chapter (Book VI, 
chap, v) is there given to it, from wliich the following sentences are taken: "It is situate in a 
great Plaine, largely extending it selfe euery way, without other hill in the same for the space of 

30 leagues, the forme thereof round and circular The way vp to it [the top] is cut out 

within the rocke, not with staires, but ascending by little and little, that one may ride vp with 

ease; it hath also hols cut to let in light Halfe way vp is a faire and spacious Hall 

cut out of the same rock, with 3 windowes very large vpwards." Professor Cooper adds, 
"This sunlit and symmetrical hill, with its miracle of inner carven passages, may partially 



NOTES 521 

explain Coleridge's 'sunny dome' and 'caves of ice' (why of ice?) which must have puzzled 
more than one reader in 'Kubla Khan. ' " As to the caves of ice, may not the poet have thought 
of the rock as marble or alabaster, to heighten the beauty of the "pleasure dome" (cf. the 
description of the earthly paradise in Paradise Lost, IV. 543, 544); or may not the phrase 
have been used merely to suggest the delicious coolness of such caves in a hot climate ? 

(75) I. Xanadu: a region in Tartary, in Purchas the form is "Zaindu," which Cole- 
ridge altered, apparently for the sake of euphony. Khan: the title of the sovereign princes 
in Tartar countries; also written "Cham." 

(76) 32. midway: half-way between the fountain (1. 19) and the caverns into which the 
river plunged (1. 27). 

(76) Christabel. The poem was intended for publication in the second edition of 
Lyrical Ballads, in 1800; but Coleridge could not or would not finish it, and it was handed 
about in manuscript (Scott heard it in 1801, and Byron in 181 1) until 1816, when Murray 
published it on the recommendation of Byron. In the preface Coleridge said, "But as, in my 
very first conception of the tale, I had the whole present to my mind, with the wholeness no 
less than with the Uveliness of a vision, I trust that I shall be able to embody in verse the three 
parts yet to come, in the course of the present year." In Table Talk, July 6, 1833, he said: 
"I could write as good verses now as ever I did, if I were perfectly free from vexations, and 
were I in the ad libitum hearing of fine music, which has a sensible effect in harmonizing my 
thoughts, and in animating and, as it were, lubricating my inventive faculty. The reason 
of my not finishing 'Christabel' is not that I don't know how to do it — for I have, as I always 
had, the whole plan entire from beginning to end in my mind; but I fear I could not carry 
on with equal success the execution of the idea, an extremely subtle and difficult one." Mr. 
Gillman, under whose care Coleridge was during the last years of his life, says, in his Life 
of Coleridge (1838), that the poet "explained the story of 'Christabel' to his friends," as follows: 
"The following relation was to have occupied a third and fourth canto, and to have closed the 
tale. Over the mountains, the Bard, as directed by Sir LeoHne, hastes with his disciple; 
but in consequence of one of those inundations supposed to be common to this country, the 
spot only where the castle once stood is discovered — the edifice itself being washed away. He 
determines to return. Geraldine, being acquainted with all that is passing, like the weird 
sisters in Macbeth, vanishes. Reappearing, however, she awaits the return of the Bard, excit- 
ing in the meantime, by her wily arts, all the anger she could rouse in the Baron's breast, as 
well as that jealousy of which he is described to have been susceptible. The old Bard and the 
youth at length arrive, and therefore she can no longer personate the character of Geraldine, 
the daughter of Lord Roland de Vaux, but changes her appearance to that of the accepted 
though absent lover of Christabel. Now ensues a courtsliip most distressing to Cliristabel, 
who feels, she knows not why, great disgust for her once favored knight. This coldness is 
very painful to the Baron, who has no more conception than herself of the supernatural trans- 
formation. She at last yields to her father's entreaties, and consents to approach the altar 
with this hated suitor. The real lover, returning, enters at this moment, and produces the 
ring which she had once given him in sign of her betrothment. Thus defeated, the super- 
natural being Geraldine disappears. As predicted, the castle bell tolls, the mother's voice 
is heard, and, to the exceeding great joy of the parties, the rightful marriage takes place, after 
which follows a reconciUation and explanation between the father and daughter." On the 
other hand Justice Coleridge, nephew of the poet, reported as follows what Wordsworth said 
to him about the poem in 1836: "He said he had no idea how 'Christabel' was to have been 
finished, and he did not think my imcle had ever conceived, in his own mind, any definite 
plan for it; that the poem had been composed .. . . when there was the most unreserved inter- 
course between them as to all their hterary projects and productions, and he had never heard 
from him any plan for finishing it. Not that he doubted my uncle's sincerity in his subsequent 
assertions to the contrary; because, he said, schemes of this sort passed rapidly and vividly 
through his mind, and so impressed him that he often fancied he had arranged things which 



522 



ENGLISH POEMS 



really, and upon trial, proved to be mere embryos." — The Prose Works of William Words- 
•worth, edited by A. B. Grosart, III. 427. "The metre of the 'Christabel' is not, properly 
speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle: namely, 
that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from 
seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless this 
occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced wantonly, or for the mere ends 
of convenience, but in correspondence with some transition in the nature of the imagery or 
passion." — Preface to the first edition. 

(77) 7- mastiff, which: adopted in 1829; in 1816, "mastiff bitch." 

(80) 129-34. The inability or reluctance of Geraldine to cross the threshold (which 
doubtless had been blessed by the Church) is the first hint that she is an evil spirit. H 141, 142. 
The witch will not join in thanks to the Virgin Mary. H 147-53. Animals were supposed 
to have a sense of the presence of supernatural beings. H 156-59. Even the dying fire 
felt the supernatural presence. 

(83) 252. In one of the extant manuscripts of the poem, says Mr. Campbell, after this 
line comes the line, "Are lean and old and foul of hue," suggesting a hag, or witch; of. 11. 
45 7. 458. 

(85) 344. Bratha Head: the Brathay is a river flowing into Lake Windermere, in the 
Lake District. II350. Pike=Feak, a pointed hill. II351. ghyll=a. ravine, with a stream 
running through it. 

(93) 656-77. This so-called conclusion has little apparent relation to the poem, and 
probably was not originally meant to be a part of it. Mr. Campbell says that the lines are 
not in the three extant manuscripts of the poem. They were sent to Southey a year after 
Part II was composed, and probably were written later than it. 

Contemporary Criticism 

The author's first piece, the "Rime of the Ancyent Marinere," in imitation of the style 
as well as of the spirit of the elder poets, is the strangest story of a cock and a bull that we 
ever saw on paper; yet, though it seems a rhapsody of unintelligible wildness and incoherence 
(of which we do not perceive the drift, unless the joke lies in depriving the wedding-guest 
of his share of the feast), there are in it poetical touches of an exquisite kind. — The Monthly 
Review, June, 1799, on Lyrical Ballads. 

This precious production ["Christabel"] is not finished, but we are to have more and 
more of it in future. It would be truly astonishing that such rude, unfashioned stuff should 
be tolerated, and still more that it should be praised by men of genius (witness Lord 
Byron and some others), were we not convinced that every principle of correct writing, as 
far as poetry is concerned, has been long given up, and that the observance rather than the 
breach of such rules is considered as an incontrovertible proof of rank stupidity. It is grand, 
in a word, it is sublime, to be lawless; and whoever writes the wildest nonsense in the quickest 
and newest manner is the popular poet of the day ! Whether this sentence be considered as 
positive truth or as a splenetic effusion, by the different parties who now divide the literary 
world, we think that the time is fast approaching when all minds will be agreed on it, and when 
any versifier who widely differs from the established standard of our nobler authors will be 
directly remanded into that limbo of vanity from which he most certainly emerged. The 
fragment of "Kubla Khan" is declared to have been composed in a dream, and is pubUshed 

as the author wrote it The poem itself is below criticism We close the slight 

publication before us with unmingled regret. The author of Remorse may perhaps be 
able to explain our feeling better than ourselves; but that so much superior genius should 
be corrupted and debased by so much execrable taste must be a subject of sincere lamentation 
to every lover of the arts and to every friend of poetry. — The Monthly Review, January, 
1817. 



NOTES 523 

Then comes "The Lady Isabelle" and "The Cherub," in imitation of Mr. Coleridge; 
the former, in evident allusion to "The Lady Christabel," recently published, is quite as 
wandering and unintelligible as that long riddle, but it has none of those flowers of poetry 
which Mr. Coleridge has scattered over the dark pall that covers and conceals the meaning of 
"Christabel." — The Quarterly Review, July, 1816, on The Poetic Mirror, a collection of 
parodies. 

Two other pieces in this miscellany [Byron's minor poems] recall to our mind the 
wild, unbridled, and fiery imagination of Coleridge. To this poet's high poetical genius we 
have always paid deference; though not uniformly perhaps, he has, too frequently for his 
own popularity, wandered into the wild and mystic, and left the reader at a loss accurately 
to determine his meaning. — The Quarterly Review, October, 1816, on "Childe Harold's 
Pilgrimage," etc. 

Upon the whole, we look upon this publication as one of the most notable pieces of 
impertinence of which the press has lately been guilty, and one of the boldest experiments that 
has yet been made upon the patience or understanding of the public. It is impossible, how- 
ever, to dismiss it without a remark or two. The other productions of the Lake School have 
generally exhibited talents thrown away upon subjects so mean that no power of genius could 
ennoble them, or perverted and rendered useless by a false theory of poetical composition. 
But even in the worst of them, if we except the "White Doe" of Mr. Wordsworth and some 
of the laureate odes, there were always some gleams of feeling or of fancy. But the thing now 
before us is utterly destitute of value. It exhibits from beginning to end not a ray of genius; 
and we defy any man to point out a passage of poetical merit in any of the three pieces which 
it contains, except, perhaps, the following lines, and evsn these are not very brilliant, nor is 
the leading thought original. [Quotation of " Chri.stabel," 11. 408-13.] With this one excep- 
tion there is literally not one couplet in the publication before us which would be reckoned 
poetry, or even sense, were it found in the corner of a newspaper or upon the window of an 
inn. Must we, then, be doomed to hear such a mixture of raving and driveling extolled as 
the work of a "wild and original" genius, simply because Mr. Coleridge has now and then 
written fine verses, and a brother poet chooses, in his milder mood, to laud him from courtesy 
or from interest ? — The Edinburgh Review, September, 1816, on "Christabel," "Kubla Khan," 
etc. (The article was written by WilUam Hazlitt.) 

To speak of it ["The Ancient Mariner "] at all is extremely difficult; above all the poems 
with which we are acquainted in any language, it is a poem to be felt, cherished, mused upon, 
not to be talked about — not capable of being described, analyzed, or criticized. It is the 
wildest of all the creations of genius: it is not like a thing of the living, listening, moving world; 
the very music of its words is like the melancholy mysterious breath of something sung to the 
sleeping ear; its images have the beauty, the grandeur, the incoherence of some mighty vision. 
The loveliness and the terror glide before us in turns, with, at one moment, the awful shadowy 
dimness, at another, the yet more awful distinctness of a majestic dream. Dim and shadowy 
and incoherent, however, though it be, how blind, how wilfully or how foolishly bhnd, must 
they have been who refused to see any meaning or purpose in the Tale of the Mariner ! . . . . 
We know not that there is any English poet who owes so much to this single element of power 
[the power of words] as Coleridge. It appears to us that there is not one of them, at least not 
one that has written since the age of Elizabeth, in whose use of words the most delicate sense 
of beauty concurs with so much exquisite subtlety of metaphysical perception. To illus- 
trate this by individual examples is out of the question, but we think a little examination 
would satisfy any person who is accustomed to the study of language of the justice of what 
we have said. In the kind of poetry in which he has chiefly dealt, there can be no doubt 
the effect of his pecuUar mastery over this instrument has been singularly happy — more so 
than, perhaps, it could have been in any other. The whole essence of his poetry is more akin 
to music than that of any other poetry we have ever met with. — Blackwood's Magazine, 
October, 181Q. 



524 ENGLISH POEMS 



ROBERT SOUTHEY 

(g?) Thalaba the Destroyer. Book VII. xiii-xxiii. "In the continuation of the 
Arabian Tales the Domdaniel is mentioned— a seminary for evil magicians, under the roost 
of the sea. From this seed the present romance has grown. Let me not be supposed to prefer 
the rhythm in which it is written, abstractedly considered, to the regular blank verse, the noblest 
measure, in my judgment, of which our admirable language is capable. For the following 
poem I have preferred it, because it suits the varied subject: it is the Arabesque ornament of 

an Arabian tale Verse is not enough favored by the English reader; perhaps this is 

owing to the obtrusiveness, the regular Jew's-harp twing-twang, of what has been foolishly 
called heroic measure. I do not wish the improvisators tune, but something that denotes 
the sense of harmony, something like the accent of feeling — like the tone which every poet 
necessarily gives to poetry." — Preface. Thalaba, who has been chosen by Allah to destroy 
the magicians, in his search for the Domdaniel caverns enters the Paradise of Sin, built by the 
sorcerer Aloadin in a valley encircled by mountains; there he finds his love Oneiza, recently 
brought thither by force, and plans to release her and himself by slaying Aloadin. At this 
point the selection begins. 

(99) SS- Zaccoum's fruit: "It [the Zaccoum] is a tree which issueth from the bottom of 
hell; the fruit thereof resembleth the heads of devils; and the damned shall eat of the same. " — 
Koran, chap, xxxvii. H 65-67. Homerites .... Himiar: Arabian tribes whose women 
were skilful with the bow. H 77. Cassowar: the cassowary, a bird nearly as large as the 
ostrich. 

(101) My Days among the Dead are Passed. Southey was a great lover of 
books and lived mostly in his library, which finally contained 14,000 volumes. De Quincey 
said that in conversation Southey's heart was "continually reverting to his wife, viz. his 

library The library .... was in all senses a good one. The books were chiefly 

English, Spanish, and Portuguese; well selected, being the great cardinal classics of the three 
literatures; fine copies, and decorated externally with a reasonable elegance, so as to make 
them in harmony with the other embellishments of the room. This effect was aided by the 
horizontal arrangement upon brackets of many rare manuscripts, Spanish or Portuguese." — 
De Quincey, Literary and Lake Reminiscences, chap, v (1839). "On some authors, such as the 
old divines, he 'fed,' as he expressed it, slowly and carefully, dwelling on the page, and taking in 
its contents deeply and deliberately, like an epicure with his wine, 'searching the subtle flavor.' 
For a considerable time after he had ceased to compose, he took pleasure in reading, 
and the habit continued after the power of comprehension was gone. His dearly prized books, 
indeed, were a pleasure to liim almost to the end, and he would walk slowly round his library, 
looking at them and taking them down mechanically." — Life and Correspondence of Robert 
Southey (1849), edited by his son, chaps, xxxii, xxxviii. 

Contemporary Criticism 

In the specimen of Jacobin poetry which we gave in our last number was developed a 

principle, perhaps one of the most universally recognized in the Jacobin creed, namely, "that 

the animadversion of human law upon human actions is for the most part nothing but gross 

oppression." .... Another principle, no less devoutly entertained, and no less sedulously 

disseminated, is the natural and eternal warfare of the poor and the rich This principle 

is treated at large by many authors. It is versified in sonnets and elegies without end. We 
trace it particularly in a poem by the same author from whom we borrowed our former illus- 
tration of the Jacobin doctrine of crimes and punishments. In this poem the pathos of the 
matterisnot a little relieved by the absurdity of the metre: .... 

Cold was the night wind; drifting fast the snows fell; 
Wide were the downs, and shelterless and naked; 
When a poor wand'rer struggled on her journey, 
Weary and way-sore. 



NOTES 525 



This is enough; unless the reader should wish to be informed how 

Fast o'er the bleak heath rattling drove a chariot; 

or how, not long after, 

Loud blew the wind, unheard was her complaining — 
On went the horseman. 

We proceed to give our imitation, which is of the Amoeboean or Collocutory kind. 

Sapphics 
the friend of humanity and the knife-grinder 
Friend of Humanity 
Needy knife-grinder, whither are you going ? 
Rough is the road; your wheel is out of order; 
Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in't, 
So have your breeches! 

Weary knife-grinder, little think the proud ones. 
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- 
-road, what hard work 't is crying all day, "Knives and 
Scissors to grind O!" 

Tell me, knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives? 
Did some rich man tyrannically use you ? 
Was it the squire ? or parson of the parish ? 
Or the attorney ? 

Was it the squire, for killing of his game ? or 
Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining ? 
Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little 
All in a lawsuit ? 

(Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine?) 
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids. 
Ready to fall as soon as you have told your 
Pitiful story. 

Knife-Grinder 
Story ! God bless you ! I have none to tell, sir, 
Only, last night, a-drinking at the Chequers, 
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were 
Torn in a scuffle. 

Constables came up for to take me into 
Custody; they took me before the justice; 
Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish- 
-Stocks for a vagrant. 

I should be glad to drink your honour's health in 
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence; 
But for my part I never love to meddle 
With politics, ^ir. 

Friend of Humanity 
I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first — 
Wretch ! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance — 
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded. 
Spiritless outcast! 

(Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of republican 
enthusiasm and universal philanthrophy.) 

— The Anti-Jacobin, November 27, 1797. (This number was written by George Canning 
and J. H. Frere.) 

Poetry has this much, at least, in common with religion, that its standards were fixed 
long ago by certain inspired writers, whose authority it is no longer lawful to call in question; 
and that many profess to be entirely devoted to it who have no good works to produce in 



526 ENGLISH POEMS 



support of their pretensions The author who is now before us belongs to a sect of 

poets that has established itself in this country within these ten or twelve years, and is looked 
upon, we believe, as one of its chief champions and apostles. The peculiar doctrines of this 
sect it would not, perhaps, be very easy to explain; but that they are dissenters from the 
established systems in poetry and criticism, is admitted, and proved, indeed, by the whole 

tenor of their compositions From this little sketch of the story [of "Thalaba"J our 

readers will easily perceive that it consists altogether of the most wild and extravagant fic- 
tions, and openly sets nature and probability at defiance. In its action it is not an imitation 
of anything, and excludes all rational criticism as to the choice and succession of its incidents. 
Tales of this sort may amuse children, and interest, for a moment, by the prodigies they 
exhibit and the multitude of events they bring together; but the interest expires with the 

novelty, and attention is frequently exhausted even before curiosity has been gratified 

All the productions of this author, it appears to us, bear very distinctly the impression of an 
amiable mind, a cultivated fancy, and a perverted taste. His genius seems naturally to deUght 
in the representation of domestic virtues and pleasures and the brilliant delineation of exter- 
nal nature. In both these departments he is frequently very successful, but he seems to want 
vigor for the loftier flights of poetry. He is often puerile, diffuse, and artificial, and seems 
to have but little acquaintance with those chaster and severer graces by whom the epic muse 
would be most suitably attended. His faults are always aggravated, and often created, by 
his partiality for the peculiar manner of that new school of poetry of which he is a faithful 
disciple, and to the glory of which he has sacrificed greater talents and acquisitions than 
can be boasted of by any of his associates. — The Edinburgh Review, October, 1802, 

THOMAS CAMPBELL 

(102) The Pleasures of Hope. Part I. 1-40. Cf. Akenside's "Pleasures of Imagi- 
nation" (1744) and Roger's "Pleasures of Memory" (1792), with regard to subject and 
title, and the latter with regard also to verse and style. 

(103) 31-40. The poet seems to combine the fable of Pandora, from whose box all 
the blessings but hope escaped, with the legend of the Iron Age, in which the gods and the 
virtues forsook the earth, and vices and evils took possession of it. If 31. Aonian: Aonia 
was a district in Greece, where stood Mt. Helicon, the fabled abode of the Muses. 

(103) Ye Mariners of England. First published in the London Morning Chronicle, 
with the title, "Alteration of the old ballad 'Ye Gentlemen of England,' composed on the 
prospect of a Russian war." The tradition is that Campbell composed some, if not all, of 
the verses while living in Edinburgh, in 1799, after hearing the ballad sung at an evening 
reception; but the above title shows that he finished or revised them the latter part of the fol- 
lowing year, during his residence in Germany. The patriotic pride and confidence of the 
poem was doubtless intensified by England's recent naval victories over the French, especially 
those of Cape St. Vincent (1797) and the Nile (1798). If 15. Blake: Robert Blake, the 
famous admiral, who won brilliant victories over the Dutch and the Spanish, in Cromwell's 
time, died at sea, of disease, in 1657; he was buried in Westminster Abbey. Nelson: Lord 
Nelson, the greatest of English naval commanders, was killed on board his ship, in the battle 
of Trafalgar (1805), which shattered the naval power of France; he was buried in St. Paul's 
Cathedral. For neither Blake nor Nelson was the ocean a " grave," nor does the poet say so. 

(104) 31. meteor flag: a double reference to the color of the British flag and to the 
old belief that meteors were portents of calamity. 

(104) HoHENLiNDEN. Hoheulinden is a village in Bavaria, about twenty miles from 
Munich; here the French inflicted a crushing defeat upon the Austrians, December 2, 1800. 
Campbell did not witness the battle (as was long erroneously beUeved); but he had been 
in Bavaria the summer before and saw some fighting, which no doubt heightened the vivid- 
ness of his lines. If i. Z,i/}(/£»=Hohenlinden. 



NOTES 527 

(105) 23. Frank: the French. Hun: the Austrians; Campbell apparently confused 
the Hungarians, one of the peoples of Austria-Hungary, with the ancient Huns. H 29. Few, 
few shall part: the battle was very bloody; some 15,000 men, about one-fourth of all the 
troops engaged, were killed or seriously wounded. 

(los) Battle of the Baltic. "It is an attempt to write an English ballad on the 
battle of Copenhagen, as much as possible in that plain, strong style pecuUar to our old bal- 
lads which tell us the when, where, and how the event happened — without gaud or ornament 
but what the subject essentially and easily affords." — Campbell, in a letter to Dr. Currie, 
April 24, 1805. The battle of Copenhagen was fought on April 2, 1801. In the preceding 
December an armed neutrality league, directed against England, had been formed by Russia, 
Sweden, Prussia, and Denmark; England protested, and soon declared war. A fleet under 
Admirals Parker and Nelson was sent against the Danish fleet at Copenhagen; Parker re- 
mained in reserve with eight ships, while Nelson advanced to the attack with twelve ships 
of the Une. The Danes had the advantage in position; three of the English ships went 
aground, and all were exposed to the fire of heavy land-batteries. The fight was so long 
and fierce that Parker signaled, "Discontinue the action." But Nelson, in reading the signal, 
applied his blind eye to the telescope and could make out nothing. He kept his own signal 
flying — "Move in closer!" At last the fire of the Danes began to slacken, and some of 
their ships were seen to be in flames; Nelson thereupon offered generous terms of siurender, 
which were accepted. The British loss in killed and severely wounded was more that 900; 
the Danish, from 1,600 to 1,800. 

In its first form, in 1805, the poem contained 162 lines; but before publication Camp- 
bell reduced it to its present length by rejecting some stanzas and condensing and combining 
others. A few stanzas from the first draft will show the poet's method of revision: 

Of Nelson and the North 

Sing the day. 
When, their haughty powers to vex, 
He engaged the Danish decks. 
And with twenty floating wrecks 

Crowned the fray. 

AU bright, in April's sun, 

Shone the day; 
When a British fleet came down. 
Through the islands of the crown 
And by Copenhagen town 

Took their stay. 

In arms the Danish shore 

Proudly shone; 
By each gun the lighted brand 
In a bold determined hand ; 
And the Prince of all the land 

Led them on. 

For Denmark here had drawn 

All her might; 
From her battle-ships so vast 
She had hewn away the mast, 
And at anchor to the last 

Bade them fight. 



Three hours the raging fire 

Did not slack; 
But the fourth, their signals drear 
Of distress and wreck appear, 
And the Dane a feeble cheer 

Sent us back. 



528 ENGLISH POEMS 



The bells shall ring ! the day 

Shall not close, 
But a blaze of cities bright 
Shall illuminate the night, 
And the wine-cup shine in light 

As it flows. 

Yet, yet, amid the joy 

And uproar, 
Let us think of them that sleep 
Full many a fathom deep 
All beside thy rocky steep, 

Elsinore 1 

(io6) 23. "Hearts of cak": the words are from the ballad, "Ye Gentlemen of Eng- 
land," long popular in England. If 36. gloom: not night (cf. 1. 51), but darkness caused by 
the smoke (cf. 11. 23-25). 

(107) 63. Elsinore: a seaport near Copenhagen, at the entrance of the sound where 
the battle was fought; it contains the fortress of Kronborg, overlooldng the sea, and is famous 
as the scene of Hamlet. ^ 67. Riou: Captain Edward Riou, who commanded the frigates 
and smaller craft, fought most gallantly against the land-batteries; he was wounded severely 
in the head by a splinter, but was still directing his men, when a cannon ball cut him in two. 

(107) Lord Ullin's Daughter. Campbell's biographer, William Beattie, says that 
the poem was sketched among the scenes to which it refers, in the island of Mull, off the 
western coast of Scotland, where the poet spent five months as a private tutor in 1795; but 
it was not finished until the winter of 1804-05. H 5. Lochgyle: a loch may be either a lake 
or a partially land-locked arm of the sea; here it is the latter, as the lovers were fleeing from 
the island to the Highlands, on the mainland. H 7. Ulva's isle: a small island oS the west 
shore of Mull. 

Contemporary Criticism 

"The Pleasures of Hope," a poem dear to every reader of poetry, bore, amidst many 
beauties, the mark of a juvenile composition, and received from the public the indulgence 
due to a promise of future excellence. Some license was also allowed for the didactic nature 
of the subject, which, prescribing no fixed plan, left the poet free to indulge his fancy in excur- 
sions as irregular as they are elegant and animated But the hope of improvement 

was, in Mr. Campbell's case, hardly necessary to augment the expectation raised by the 
actual excellence of his first poem. The beauties of an highly polished versification, that ani- 
mated and vigorous tone of moral feeUng, that turn of expression, which united the sweetness of 
Goldsmith with the strength of Johnson, a structure of language alike remote from servile 
imitation of our more classical poets and from the babbling and jingUng simplicity of ruder 
minstrels, new but not singular, elegant but not trite, justified the admirers of "The Pleasures 

of Hope" in elevating its author to a pre-eminent situation among living poets Two 

beautiful war odes, entitled "The Mariners of England" and "The Battle of the Baltick," 
afford pleasing instances of that ghort and impetuous lyric sally in which Mr. Campbell 
excells all his contemporaries. Two ballads, "Glenara" and "Lord Ullin's Daughter," the 
former approaching the rude' yet forcible simplicity of the ancient minstrels, the latter upon 
a more refined plan, conclude the volume. They were new to us, and are models in their 
several styles of composition. — The Quarterly Review, May, 1809. 

There are probably few readers of English poetry who are not already familiar with 
the "Lochiel" and the " Hohenlinden " — the one by far the most spirited and poetical denuncia- 
tion of woe since the days of Cassandra, the other the only representation of a modern battle 
which possesses either interest or sublimity. The song to "The Mariners of England" is 
also very generally known. It is a splendid instance of the most magnificent diction adapted 

to a familiar and even trivial metre "The Battle of the Baltic," though we think 

it has been printed before, is much less known. Though written in a strange, and we think 



NOTES 529 

an unfortunate, metre, it has great force and grandeur both of conception and expression — 
that sort of force and grandeur which results from the simple and concise expression of great 
events and natural emotions, altogether unassisted by any splendor or amplification of expres- 
sion. The characteristic merit in these, both of this piece and of "Hohenlinden," is that, by 
the forcible deUneation of one or two great circumstances, they give a clear and most energetic 
representation of events as compUcated as they are impressive, and thus impress the mind 
of the reader with all the terror and sublimity of the subject, while they rescue him from 
the fatigue and perplexity of its details. — The Edinburgh Review, April, 1809. 

WALTER SCOTT 

(109) The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto I. i-xviii. "The poem now offered 
to the pubUc is intended to illustrate the customs and manners which anciently prevailed 

on the borders of England and Scotland The date of the tale itself is about the middle 

of the sixteenth century, when most of the personages actually flourished." — Preface to the 
first edition. In 1801 Scott received a visit from a Mr. Stoddart, a friend of the "Lake 
Poets," who recited to him some of their unpublished poems. "Amongst others was the 
striking fragment called 'Christabel,' by Mr. Coleridge, which, from the singularly irregular 
structure of the stanzas, and the liberty which it allowed the author to adapt the sound to the 
sense, seemed to be exactly suited to such an extravaganza as I meditated on the subject 
of Gilpin Horner [the germ of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel"] It was in 'Chris- 
tabel' that I first found it [this metre] used in serious poetry, and it is to Mr. Coleridge that 
I am bound to make the acknov/ledgment due from the pupil to his master." — Introduc- 
tion (1831) to "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." 

(109) s. Cf. "Christabel,"!. 54. 

(no) 38. barbed= armored. H sq. Jedwood-axe: a long-handled battle-axe, or par- 
tizan; so called from the town of Jedburgh, the coat-of-arms of which has such a weapon. 
*\ li?,. Southern: EngKsh. 1t6i. Dunedin—'E^nhvirgh.. ("Dunedin," meaning the "hill of 
Edwin," is the name the Scots gave to Edinburgh, which was founded by Edwin, King of 
Northumbria, in the seventh century.) 

(in) 63. slogan's: the slogan was the war-cry or gathering-word of a Highland clan 
(GaeUc "sluagh," army, and "gairm," a call). 

(112) 112. a c/e;'^ = a learned man (Late Latin "clericus," a clergyman; also a learned 
man, because in the Middle Ages the clergy constituted the only educated class). H 119. 
St Andrews, a town in Fifeshiie, was the site of the cathedral of St. Andrew, where the 
"clerk of fame" was archbishop. H 120. "The vulgar conceive that when a class of students 
have made a certain progress in their mystic studies, they are obliged to run through a sub- 
terraneous hall, where the Devil Uterally catches the hindmost in the race, unless he crosses 
the hall so speedily that the arch-enemy can only apprehend his shadow. In the latter case, 
the person of the sage never after throws any shade; and those who have thus lost their 
shadow always prove the best magicians." — Scott, "ll 126-43. Cf. "Christabel," 11. 1-52. 
U 131. scaur's: a scaur is a precipitous bank. ^ 137. ban-dogs=^\a.rg&, fierce dogs, usually 
kept chained ("band" and "dogs"). 

(113) 151. jell=a. rocky hill. H 156. morris=ihe: morris dance (probably so called 
because of Moorish origin). ^ 158. emerald rings: "Their [the fairies'] diversion was danc- 
ing hand-in-hand in a circle; and the traces of their tiny feet, which were held to be visible 

on the grass long afterwards, were called fairy rings Ringlets of grass .... are 

very common in meadows, which are higher, sourer, and of a deeper green than the grass 
that grows round them, and by the common people are usually called 'fairy circles.' " — 
Brand's Popular Antiquities. H 170. Arthur's slow wain: the seven brightest stars in the 
constellation Ursa Major (cf. "Northern Bear," 1. 172); called a wain because of a fanciful 
resemblance to a cart with its tongue (the same as the Great Dipper); called Arthur's by 



53© ENGLISH POEMS 



a corruption of "Arcturus," the name of the brightest star in the group and often used for 
the whole. 

(114) LoCHiNVAR. From "Marmion" (Canto V. xii). "The ballad of 'Lochinvar' 
is in a very slight degree founded on a ballad called 'Katharine Janfarie,' which may be found 
in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." — Scott. 

(115) 20. the Solway: Solway Firth, an arm of the sea, separating Scotland from Eng- 
land; the tides in it are very swift (see Redgauntlet, chap. iv). ^ 32. galliard: a spirited 
dance for two persons. 

(115) Coronach. From "The Lady of the Lake" (Canto IlL xvi). 

(116) 17. correi: "The hollow side of the hill, where game usually Ues." — Scott. 
H 18. CMm6er= distress, trouble (cf. "encumber"). 

(116) The Lady of the Lake. Canto VI. xv-xxi. The minstrel sings to the dying 
Roderick Dhu, in prison, an account of the battle between his Highland clan and the forces 
of James V, King of Scotland. "A skirmish actually took place at a pass thus called [Beal' 
an Duine] in the Trosachs, and closed with the remarkable incident mentioned in the text. 
It was greatly posterior in date to the reign of James V." — Scott. T| 9. the erne=the eagle. 

(117) 26. Saxon: the Highlanders called the Lowlanders "Saxons" and themselves 
"Gaels." K36. barbed= axmored. 

(118) 84. Tinchel: "A circle of sportsmen who, by surrounding a great space and 
gradually narrowing, brought immense quantities of deer together, which usually made 
desperate efforts. to break through the Tinchel." — Scott. 

(119) 119. BracklirM's chasm: the Falls of Bracklinn, in a wooded gorge, are not 
far from the scene of the battle. ^ 120. /iren=cataract. 

(122) 218. BothwelVs lord: the exiled Douglas, in whose interest Roderick and his 
clan had taken up arms. 

(122) Proud Maisie. From The Heart of Mid-Lothian, chap. xl. H 7. hraw= 
brave, stout, handsome. 

(122) County Guy. From Quentin Durward, chap. iv. ^5. //tr27/e(/= trilled. 

(123) Bonny Dundee. From "The Doom of Devorgoil," II. ii. See Old Mar- 
tality for a portrait of Claverhouse at an earlier period than that of the ballad. John Gra- 
ham of Claverhouse, Viscount of Dundee, a man of great personal fascination and a dashing 
soldier, was the chief agent of Charles II and James II in suppressing uprisings by the Scotch 
Covenanters. Even when James had fled to France, Claverhouse staunchly supported his 
cause, braving the Convention, or Scotch Parliament, as told in the jxsem, and marching 
out of Edinburgh at the head of fifty devoted followers. He failed in his attempt to per- 
suade the Duke of Gordon to hold Edinburgh Castle for King James, but in the Highlands 
he raised an army which defeated the government forces at the battle of Killiecrankie, in 
1689; he himself, however, was killed, saying almost with his last breath that "it was the 
less matter for him, seeing the day went well for his master." H 10. the bells are rung back- 
ward: "To ring bells backward, to give an alarm by ringing the bells of a chime in the wrong 
order, beginning with the bciss bell." — Century Dictionary. H 11. douce=s\.a.iA, prudent. 
II 14. the sanctified bends of the Bow: Bow, or West Bow, a curving street in Edinburgh was 
inhabited chiefly by Covenanters. Tli?. /i* = each. cay/»»e= middle-aged or old woman. 
flyting=sco\6mg. ^ow= poll, head. TI 16. coM//ize=kindly, loving. slee=%\y. *iig. Grass- 
market: at that time the place of executions. II 24. cowls of Kilmarnock: Kilmarnock, a 
town west of Edinburgh, was formerly famous for the manufacture of "Kilmarnock cowls," 
or hooded garments. II25. gullies '=\axge knives. H 26. close-heads: the upper ends of 
narrow passages leading from the street. 

(124) 31. Mons Meg: a great cannon, supposed to have been made in Mons, Belgium. 
marrows^maXts. H 35. Montrose: The Marquis of Montrose fought for the king in the Civil 
War, and was executed because of a royalist attack which he made on Scotland in 1650. ^ 41. 
Duniewassals: Highland gentlemen of secondary rank. II44. 6or^e»ei= tanned with bark. 



NOTES 531 

Contemporary Criticism 
There is nothing cold, creeping, or feeble in all Mr. Scott's poetry; no laborious little- 
ness, or puling classical affectation. He has his failures, indeed, like other people, but he 
always attempts vigorously, and never fails in his immediate object without accomplishing 
something far beyond the reach of an ordinary writer. Even when he wanders from the 
paths of pure taste, he leaves behind him the footsteps of a powerful genius, and molds the 
most humble of his materials into a form worthy of a nobler substance. Allied to this inherent 
vigor and animation, and in a great degree derived from it, is that air of facility and freedom 

which adds so peculiar a grace to most of Mr. Scott's compositions These, we think, 

are the general characteristics of Mr. Scott's poetry. Among his minor peculiarities, we 
might notice his singular talent for description, and especially for the description of scenes 
abounding in motion or action of any kind. In this department, indeed, we conceive hhn 
to be almost without a rival, either among modern or ancient poets; and the character and 
process of his descriptions are as extraordinary as their effect is astonishing. — The Edinburgh 
Review, August, 1810, on "The Lady of the Lake." (The article was written by Francis 
Jeffrey.) 

GEORGE GORDON BYRON 
Notes signed "B." are by Byron. 

(125) Lachin y Gair. One of the poems in Hours of Idleness. "Lachin y Gair, or, 
is it is pronounced in the Erse, Loch na Garr, towers proudly pre-eminent in the Northern 
Highlands Near Lachin y Gair I spent some of the early part of my life, the recol- 
lection of which has given birth to these stanzas." — B. 1 23. my lathers: "I allude here to 
my maternal ancestors, the Gordons, many of whom fought for the unfortunate Prince Charles, 
better known by the name of the Pretender." — B. *\ 30. Braemar: a tract of the Highlands. 

(126) English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Lines 143-64, 225-54, 438-59, 
1037-7°- Byron had begun to write a poem, "English Bards," in 1807; after the scathing 
criticism of Hours of Idleness in The Edinburgh Review, in 1808 (see p. 538), he enlarged 
the scope of the poem, as indicated by the later title, but his purpose was still, in part, to 
satirize the poetry of his day, of which he then and later had a low opinion. "With regard 
to poetry in general, I am convinced, the more I think of it, that he and all of us — Scott, 
Southey, Wordsworth, Moore, Campbell, I — are all in the wrong, one as much as another; 
that we are upon a wrong revolutionary poetical system, or systems, not worth a damn in 

itself, and from which none but Rogers and Crabbe are free I am the more confirmed 

in this by having lately gone over some of our classics, particularly Pope, whom I tried in this 
way — I took Moore's poems and my own and some others, and went over them side by side 
with Pope's, and I was really astonished (I ought not to have been so) and mortified at the 
ineffable distance in point of sense, harmony, effect, and even imagination, passion, and 
invention, between the little Queen Anne's man and us of the Lower Empire." — Letter to 
Murray, September 15, 1817. But of the poem as a whole his mature judgment did not 
approve; in 1816, after re-reading it, he wrote on the margin: "The greater part of this 
satire I most sincerely wish had never been written — not only on account of the injustice of 
much of the critical and some of the personal part of it, but the tone and temper are such as 
I cannot approve." 

(126) 26. a fourth: a fourth epic; "Joan of Arc," "Thalaba," and "Madoc" had 
already appeared. II29. Berkley ballads: an allusion to Southey 's ballad, "The Old Woman 
of Berkley," in which an old woman is carried off by Beelzebub. 

(127) 32. The first three words are quoted because, as Byron said in his note, they 
are "an evident plagiarism from the Anti-Jacobin to Mr. Southey on his dactylics"; the 
poem referred to contains the half-line, "God help thee, silly one." II37, 38. See "The 
Tables Turned." II40. See Wordsworth's preface to Lyrical Ballads, quoted on p. 506. 



532 ENGLISH POEMS 



H S3- Jeffrey: Francis Jeffrey, editor of The Edinburgh Review, and long supposed to be 
the writer of the critique on Hours of Idleness (see p. 538). Byron changed his opinion of 
him later, when Jeffrey had praised generously his subsequent poems. In 1S14 he wrote to 
Moore, "As for Jeffrey, it is a very handsome thing of him to speak well of an old antago- 
nist, and what a mean mind dared not do"; and in "Don Juan" (X. xvi) he wrote thus 
in 1822: 

And all our little feuds, at least all mine, 

Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe 
(As far as rhyme and criticism combine 

To make such puppets of us things below), 
Are over: here's a health to "Auld Lang Syne!" 

I do not know you, and may never know 
Your face — but you have acted on the whole 
Most nobly, and I own it from my soul. 

If 54. a judge: the brutal and bloodthirsty Chief Justice Jeffreys, of the "Bloody Assizes" 
in, 1685. 

(128) 75-108. These lines were added in the second edition, in October, 1809. TI 77. 
Hours of Idleness was published anonymously, but the authorship was no secret. II81. / 
tear the veil away: the first edition of "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," in March, 
was anonymous; the second bore Byron's name. II83. Melbourne house: Lord Melbourne 
was brother of George Lambe, a contributor to The Edinburgh Review. *[1 84. Holland's 
spouse: "Certain it is, her ladyship is suspected of having displayed her matchless wit in 
The Edinburgh Review. However that may be, we know from good authority, that the 
manuscripts are submitted to her perusal — no doubt, for correction." — B. 18s. Jeffrey's 
harmless pistol: "In 1806 Messrs. Jeffrey and Moore met at Chalk-Farm. The duel was 
prevented by the interference of the magistracy; and, on examination, the balls of the pistols 
were found to have evaporated." — B. H 87. buckram: a coarse linen cloth used in binding 
books; the allusion to the bound volumes of the Review is obvious. 1 88. "penetrable stuff": 
Hamlet, III. iv. 36. 1 105. f«co«(f?/e= unpolished, rude (Latin "inconditus," not put to- 
gether). 

(129) She Walks in Beauty. Included in Hebrew Melodies; but the stanzas were 
written about Lady Horton, whom the poet had recently seen at a ball, attired in mourning 
with numerous spangles on her dress. 

(130) The Prisoner of Chillon. Written in two days, at a small inn, where the poet 
was detained by bad weather during a tour of the Lake of Geneva with Shelley. Franfois 
de Bonnivard (1496-1570?) was the head of a small priory outside Geneva. From political 
and religious motives he espoused the cause of the republic of Geneva against the Duke of 
Savoy, who had been granted seignorial rights over the city by the prince bishop. The 
duke imprisoned him in the castle of Chillon during the years 1530 to 1536, four of which he 
spent in the dungeon below the level of the Lake of Geneva. When Chillon was captured 
by the forces of his party, he was released, and was made a member of the council of Geneva, 
and given a pension; he married four times, having become a Protestant. It will be seen 
from these facts that Byron's prisoner is less the historical character than his own ideal con- 
ception of the heroic and pathetic victim of religious persecution. The meter of the poem 
perhaps shows somewhat the influence of "Christabel," which Byron had heard read and 
which he had recently advised Murray to publish. 

(140) To Thomas Moore. "This should have been written fifteen moons ago [just 
as Byron was leaving England forever] — the first stanza was." — Letter to Moore, July 10, 181 7. 

(141) Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. "The following poem was written, for the 
most part, amidst the scenes which it attempts to describe. It was begun in Albania; and 
the parts relative to Spain and Portugal were composed from the author's observations in 
those countries A fictitious character is introduced for the sake of giving some con- 
nection to the piece, which, however, makes no pretension to regularity. It has been sug- 



NOTES 533 



gested to me .... that in this fictitious character, Childt, Harold, I may incur the suspi- 
cion of having intended some real personage: this I beg leave, once for all, to disclaim." — ■ 
Preface to the first edition of Cantos I and 11. "Childe" is used as in the old romances 
and ballads, meaning a youth of a noble house, usually one not yet admitted to knighthood. 

(141) SPAIN. Canto I. xxxv-xlii. When Byron visited Spain, in the summer of 1809, 
Spain and her ally, England, vrere at war with France, resisting the aggressions of Napoleon, 
who had seated his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne. The poet first appeals to the 
Spaniards to be worthy of their ancestors who fought against the Saracen invaders, and then 
describes the battle of Talavera, which occurred July 26-28; Byron visited the battlefield 
soon after. ^ 2-4. Arabs and Moors invaded Spain in 711, aided by Count Julian, a Spanish 
nobleman; according to popular tradition, his motive was revenge for the violation of his 
daughter, Cava, by King Roderick, but it is far more probable that political discontent was 
the cause. The Saracens easily conquered all Spain except the mountainous northern por- 
tions, where Pelagio, whose standard was an oaken cross, repulsed them. Gothic: the ruling 
class in Spain were the descendants of the West Goths, who overran the country at the down- 
fall of the Roman Empire. H 7. al last: the Moors were finally driven from Spain in 1492, 
in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. Tl27. Andalusia's shore: Andalusia, the southern 
part of Spain, was the last stronghold of the Moors. 

(142) 57. ;?oM/=mock at, with a reference here, apparently, to the contrast between 
"gaudy" and "pale blue." % 59. /o;j(i= foolish, as often in early English (M. E. "formed," 
p. p. of "fon," to act foolishly). ^70. hails: here used in the sense of "welcomes." 

(143) GREECE. Canto II. Ixxiii, Ixxxiv-xcl. ^[g. Eurolas' banks: a.Tivetmihe country 
of the Spartans was selected for mention because the Spartans were the leaders in the des- 
perate battle with the Persian hordes at Thermopylae. K 10. Lacedemon's: Lacedemon was 
an ancient name for Laconia and its capital, Sparta. H 11. Epaniinondas: Thebes 's greatest 
general. H 29. the cave: "of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble was dug that con- 
structed the public edifices of Athens An immense cave, formed by the quarries, still 

remains." — B. H 30. Tritonia's—At}xena.''&\ according to one tradition Athena was bom 
near Lake Triton, in Libya. II31. Colonna's clifj: the promontory at the southern extremity 
of Attica, so named from the columns of a temple to Athena; the ancient Sunium. 

(144) 40. Hymettus: a mountain near Athens, famous for its honey. If 44. Mendeli's: 
Mendeli is the modern name for Pentelicus; see note on 1. 29. H 54. Athena's to'wer=the 
Parthenon, by a loose use of the word "tower." H 55-72. Added in 1814. If 56. Its foreign 
lord: Greece was then subject to Turkey. 

(145) BYRON AND CHILDE HAROLD. Canto III. i-xvi. Ifi. Byron's 
daughter was only five weeks old when Lady Byron left him, and he never saw the child 
again. 

(146) 43. yet: equivalent here to "but"; "yet rife" is in contrast to "lone." If 64. 
Something too much of this: Hamlet, III. ii. 79. H65. spell=stOTy, narrative, silent seal 
=seal of silence. 

(147) 80. pined=pamed. If 99. /o«(f=foelish. 

(148) 123. this clay=ihe body. 

(i4q) WATERLOO. Canto III. xvii-xxviii. The battle of Waterloo had been fought 
the year before Byron's visit. ^ 9. king-making victory: the battle seated the kings of Europe 
more firmly on their thrones, which had been endangered first by the French Revolution 
and then by the ambition of Napoleon. "H 14. "pride of place": a term in falconry, meaning 
the highest point of flight. H 36. Harmodius and Aristogeiton slew Hipparchus, one of the 
tyrants of Athens, in 514 B. c, at the Panathenaic festival, having concealed their swords 
in myrtle branches. H 37. On the evening before the battle of Quatre-Bras (which occiurred 
on June 16, 1815, two days before the battle of Waterloo), a ball was given in Brussels, and 
many of the British officers went to it. Wellington knew that Napoleon was near, and had 
made all preparations for the battle; but in order to keep the city ignorant of his plans he 



534 ENGLISH POEMS 



let the ball go on. The Lady de Ros, a daughter of the Duchess of Richmond, who gave the 
ball, in her Personal Recollections of the Great Duke of Wellington, says: "When the duke 
arrived, rather late, at the ball, I was dancing, but at once went up to him to ask about the 
rumors. He said very gravely, 'Yes, they are true; we are off to-morrow.' This terrible 
news was circulated directly, and while some of the officers hurried away, others remained 
at the ball, and actually had not time to change their clothes, but fought in evening costume " 
{Murray's Magazine, January and February, 1889; in book form, as A Sketch of the Life of 
Georgiana, Lady de Ros, 1893). 

(150) 61. The father of the Duke of Brunswick had been killed in the battle of Auer- 
stadt, in i8o6. 

(151) 82. "Cameron's Gathering": the war-song which called together the Cameron 
clan. H 83. Lochiel: Donald Cameron of Lochiel, the chief of the clan, who fought for the 
Young Pretender in 1745. Albyn's: "Albyn" is the Gaelic name for Scotland. H 84. 
Saxon=~English. H 90. Evan's: Evan Cameron was grandfather of Donald, and had fought 
against Cromwell; his great-great-grandson commanded a regiment of Highlanders in the 
battle of Quatre-Bras, and was mortally wounded. ^ 91. Ardennes. The forest was really 
that of Soignies: "The wood of Soignies is supposed to be a remnant of the forest of Ar- 
dennes, .... immortal in Shakespeare's As You Like It. .... 1 have ventured to adopt 
the name connected with nobler associations than those of mere slaughter." — B. 

(151) LAKE LEMAN IN CALM AND STORM. Canto III. kxxv-xcvii. 

(152) 37-39. Cf. Wordsworth's "It Is a Beauteous Evening," etc., 11. 2, 3. 

(153) 50-54. Cf. "Adonais," 11. 478-86. Byron was much in Shelley's company 
during the weeks when this canto was written, and evidently was influenced by the latter 's 
idealistic pantheism, embodied later in "Adonais." Cyfherea's zone: the girdle of Aphrodite, 
which made beautiful and awakened love for the person wearing it; see the Iliad, XIV. 214 £E. 
Aphrodite was called Cytherea from the island of Cythera, near which, -according to one 
myth, she rose from the foam of the sea. 1 55-63. "It is to be recollected that the most 
beautiful and impressive doctrines of the divine Founder of Christianity were delivered, not 

in the Temple, but on the Mount The Mussulmans .... are accustomed to 

repeat their prescribed orisons and prayers wherever they may be, at the stated hours — of 

course frequently in the open air, kneeling upon a light mat On me the simple and 

entire sincerity of these men, and the spirit which appeared to be within and upon them, 
made a far greater impression than any general rite which was ever performed in places of 
worship." — B. K64. "The thunder-storm to which these lines refer occurred on the 13th 
of June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen, among the Acroceraunian mountains of Chimari, 
several more terrible, but none more beautiful." — B. 

(154) 82-90. Cf. " Christabel," 11. 408-26; Byron had seen the poem in manuscript 
and it had recently been published by his advice; his stanza seems to be a direct reminiscence 
of Coleridge's lines. H 102. feeling: see the preceding stanzas, in which the poet has attrib- 
uted conscious life and emotion to the night and the storm. H 104. hnoll: apparently used 
in the sense of "signal-bell"; the dying away of the storm, which has absorbed his thought 
and temporarily taken him out of himself, recalls him to himself and the tempests within 
him. 

(155) VENICE. Canto IV. i-iii. % 1. Bridge of Sighs. " The communication between 
the ducal palace and the prisons of Venice is by a gloomy bridge, or covered gallery, high 
above the water, and divided by a stone wall into a passage and a cell. The state dtmgeons 
.... were sunk in the thick walls of the palace; and the prisoner, when taken out to die, 
was conducted across the gallery to the other side, and being then led back into the other 
compartment, or cell, upon the bridge, was there strangled. " — Hobhouse. K 8. wingdd Lion's: 
on a pillar near the ducal palace is the winged lion of St. Mark, the tutelary saint of Venice. 
K 9. her hundred isles: Venice is built on some 117 islands. If 10. Cybele: Cybele, the wife 
of Saturn, was sometimes regarded as the goddess of town life and as such wore a crown 



NOTES 535 

fashioned like a turreted city wall. 1 13. At the height of her glory as a maritime power, 
in the fifteenth century, the republic of Venice had an enormous trade, a large fleet of war- 
galleys, and many possessions in the East, including most of the Greek islands. U 19, 20. 
Before the capture of Venice by Napoleon, in 1797, the gondoliers were accustomed to sing, 
in alternation, stanzas from Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. II27. masque: here about 
equivalent to "festivity" and "revel"; one kind of masque was an entertainment something 
like a modem mask-ball. 

(155) ROME AND FREEDOM. Canto IV. Ixxviii-kxx, Ixxxviii-xcviii. 

(156) 10. The Niobe of Nations: the twelve children of Niobe, wife of the king of 
Thebes, were slain by the arrows of Apollo and Artemis because she had boasted of her supe- 
riority to their mother, Leto, in number of offspring. H 19, 20. The Goths sacked Rome in 
410 and later. Under Christian rule temples and other buildings were mutilated, to gratify 
religious fanaticism or to secure building material. 1| 22, 23. The sense is that in the decay 
of the empire barbarian monarchs, who had captm-ed Rome, rode up the Capitoline Hill, 
which in former days victorious Roman generals had climbed in their triumphal chariots, 
often with captive kings in their train. % 28. thunder-stricken nurse of Rome: the bronze 
image, in the Capitoline Museum, of the wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus, the founders 
of Rome, is by some identified with the image mentioned by Cicero {De divinatione, ii. 20) 
as having been struck by lightning. H 34. ethereal: coming from the ether, or upper air, 
whence Jove hurled his thunderbolts. K 40. things: used loosely for the Roman Empire 
and its "men of iron"; modern nations have imitated the Romans by fighting and dying for 
conquest and glory. H 44. one vain man: Napoleon. 

(157) S3- Alcides with the distaff: while Hercules (called Alcides, because descended 
from Alceus) was the slave of Omphale, he wore woman's dress and spun wool with her 
handmaidens. H 54. At Cleopatra's feet: when Julius Caesar was in Egypt he came under 
the speU of Cleopatra. H 56. his eagles: the French regiments; from the Roman custom of 
having eagles on the military standards, the word came to be used for soldiers of any nation. 
flee—&y. The sense of this line and the next is that Napoleon wished to reduce his armies 
to mere tame instruments of his will, by which to win victories for his own power and glory. 

(158) 97. him: Napoleon. II112. deadly days: the Reign of Terror during the 
French Revolution, f, 113. vile ambition: the military and political ambition of the new 
republic of France, which became the foe of the freedom of Europe, instead of its friend; 
of. Coleridge's "France: an Ode." II115. the base pageant: apparently the empire and court 
of Napoleon. Some would take it to refer to the Congress of Vienna, the Holy Alliance, 
and the Second Treaty of Paris, all in 1815, and all designed to strengthen monarchy against 
the democratic tendencies of the age; but these could not rightly be called the "pretext" 
for the reactionary attempt to make political slavery perpetual ("the eternal thrall"), being 
rather a part of the attempt itself, ^i 18-21. These lines show the keenness of Byron's 
political vision, no less than the strength and persistence of his passion for freedom. At a 
time when a monarchical reaction had set in strongly all over Europe, this English patrician 
saw and boldly proclaimed that the democratic tendency, although temporarily discredited, 
was really the strongest force of the times and would ultimately prevail. The simile from 
nature is as accurate as it is vigorous: the thunder-cloud, like freedom, is borne on the upper 
and main current of air; while the lower current, blowing in our faces and seeming to be 
the most important, is really only a temporary eddy, on a lower plane. 

(159) THE OCEAN. Canto IV. cbcxTiii-clxxxiv. K i-p- Written later than the rest, 
ini8i8. II27. lay: Byron made the same grammatical error, more common among educated 
people in his day than now, in "The Adieu," 1. 94: "Where now my head must lay." 

(160) 36. The Armada's pride: of the vast fleet which Spain sent against England, in 
is88, more than half was destroyed by the sea in the terrible voyage northward, around the 
Orkney Islands, to avoid another battle with the English ships, spoils of Trafalgar: most 
of the French vessels captured by Nelson at Trafalgar were destroyed by a gale soon after. 



536 



ENGLISH POEMS 



1(39. Thy waters washed them power: in the first edition and in several later editions, the 
reading by mistake was, "Thy waters wasted them." "What does 'thy waters wa^s/erf them» 
mean . . . . ? That is not me. Consult the MS. a/ if a ji^y." — Letter to Murray, September 24, 
i8i8. 

(160) Don Juan. "You ask me for the plan of Donny Johnny: I have no plan — I 

had no plan; but I had or have materials You are too earnest and eager about a 

work never intended to be serious. Do you suppose that I could have any intention but to 
giggle and make giggle ? — a playful satire, with as little poetry as could be helped, was what 
I meant." — Letter to Murray, August 12, 1819. "Don Juan will be known, by and by, for 
what it is intended — a satire on abuses of the present states of society, and not an eulogy of 
vice." — Letter to Murray, October 25, 1822. Byron had already (1817) written a poem, 
"Beppo," in the same stanza and the same general manner. In a letter to Murray (March 

25, 1818) he says of "Beppo": "Whistlecraft was my immediate model But .... 

Berni is the father of that kind of writing, which, I think, suits our language, too, very well — 
we shall see by the experiment. If it does, I shall send you a volume in a year or two." Berni 
was an Italian poet of the sixteenth century. "Whistlecraft" was the pseudonym of J. H. 
Frere in "The Monks and the Giants" (1817); the first two stanzas of his poem will show 
how closely it anticipated "Beppo" and "Don Juan" in verse and style: 

I 've often wished that I could write a book 

Such as all English people might peruse; 
I never should regret the pains it took. 

That's just the sort of fame that I should choose. 
To sail about the world like Captain Cook, 

I 'd sling a cot up for my favourite Muse, 
And we 'd take verses out to Demarara, 
To New South Wales, and up to Niagara. 

Poets consume exciseable commodities, 

They raise the nation's spirit when victorious. 
They drive an export trade in whims and oddities, 

Making our commerce and revenue glorious; 
As an industrious and pains-taking body 't is 

That poets should be reckoned meritorious: 
And therefore I submissively propose 
To erect one Board for Verse and one for Prose. 

(160) THE SHIPWRECK. Canto II. xliv-liv, ciii-cx. "With regard to the charges 
about the shipwreck, I think that I told you and Mr. Hobhouse, years ago, that there was 
not a single circumstance of it not taken from fact; not, indeed, from any single ship- 
wreck, but all from actual facts of different wrecks." — Letter to Murray, August 23, 1821. 
The close parallel between the poet's narrative and Dalzell's Shipwrecks and Disasters at 
Sea (1812) was first pointed out in The Monthly Magazine, in 1821; a few passages (which, 
it should be said, are often taken from places widely apart) will show Byron's method of 

handling his material: "I perceived the ship settling by the head Some appeared 

perfectly resigned, went to their hammocks, and desired their messmates to lash them in; 
others were securing themselves to gratings and small rafts; but the most predominant idea 
was that of putting on their best and cleanest clothes. The boats .... were got over the 

side The yawl was stove alongside and sunk One oar was erected for a 

mainmast, and the other broke to the breadth of the blankets for a yard Spars, booms, 

hencoops, and everything buoyant was therefore cast loose, that the men might have some 

chance to save themselves We had scarce quitted the ship, when she gave a heavy 

lurch to port, and then went down, head foremost The crew had just time to leap 

overboard, which they did, uttering a most dreadful yell." 

The ship in which Juan and his tutor, the licentiate Pedrillo, are sailing from Cadiz to 
Leghorn, is wrecked at sea by a prolonged gale. At this point the selection begins. 

(163) 89. The long boat, after a terrible voj'age, in which all but four of the thirty 



NOTES 537 



occupants of the boat die, approaches one of the Cyclades, in the Aegean Sea. ^ 110-12. 
"This morning I swam from Sestos to Abydos. The immediate distance is not above a 
mile, but the current renders it hazardous — so much so that I doubt whether Leander's con- 
jugal affection must not have been a little chilled in his passage to Paradise. I attempted 
it a week ago and failed — owing to the north win„ and the wonderful rapidity of the tide, 
— though I have been from my childhood a strong swimmer. But this morning being calmer, 
I succeeded, and crossed the 'broad Hellespont' in an hour and ten minutes." — Letter to Mr. 
Drury, May 3, 1810. Lieut. Ekenhead, of the British navy, accompanied the poet, and 
beat him by five minutes. 

(165) JUAN AND HAIDEE. Canto IV. dxxiv-clxxxv, cxcix-ccii. Haidee, the 
daughter of a Greek pirate, finds Juan, hides him in a cave, and nurses him back to life. At 
this point the selection begins. ^ 7. According to one tradition, lo, the beautiful daughter 
of the king of Argos, was carried off by Phoenician traders. ^ 8. BjTon v/as careful to 
have his geography accurate: Ragusa is a port on the AdriaticSea, and Scio is north of the 
Cyclades; a vessel bound from Ragusa to Scio would therefore pass among the islands, 
within easy reach of the pirate. 

(168) THE SCEPTIC AND HIS POEM. Canto XIV. i-x. 

(170) The Vision OF Judgment. Lines 744-848. Southey, in the preface to his " Vision 
of Judgment" (1821), vindicating George III, who had just died, went out of the way to 
attack the moral character of Byron. Byron, who thought Southey a Pharisee and a poli- 
tical turncoat as well as a poor poet, satirized him in this poem. The earlier stanzas describe 
a controversy at the gate of heaven, between the angelic and the infernal hosts, to decide 
whether George III should go to heaven or to hell; in the middle of the dispute a demon 
arrives with Southey under his wing, and the poet is given a chance to defend himself for 
writing "A Vision of Judgment." At this point the selection begins. ^8. "de 5e"=upon 
himself (literally, "of himself"). 

(171) 24. "Wat Tyler": this poem, vrritten in 1794 and expressing Southey's radical 
political opinions at that time, had been published surreptitiously in 1817, much to the author's 
annoyance. "Rhymes on Blenheim": the familiar ballad, "The Battle of Blenheim" (1800), 
in which Southey insinuated that the great victory which the English won over the French 
in 1704 was a useless waste of life. "Waterloo": "The Poet's POgrimage to Waterloo" 
(1816), in which Southey, now a conservative, rejoices over the downfall of the French and 
the collapse of the French Revolution. If 29. pantisocracy: a scheme for a communistic 
colony (the word means "equal rule of all"), which Coleridge and Southey, in their youth, 
had dreamed of establishing in America; Byron's hint that the scheme had immoral features 
is a mere fling. ^31. a»/i-7oco6iw = anti-radical, conservative. ("Jacobin" became a term 

or revolutionists during the French Revolution, when a society of revolutionists held their 
meetings in a Jacobin convent in Paris.) TI 41. Wesley's: Southey's life of the founder of 
Methodism had come out the year before. 

(172) 63. Like King Alphonso: "Alfonso, speaking of the Ptolemean system, said 
that 'had he been consulted at the creation of the world, he would have spared the Maker 
some absurdities.' " — B. 

(173) 104. Ihe hundredth psalm: it begins, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord." 

(173) On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year. Written at Missolonghi, 
Greece, January 22, 1824, three months before the poet's death. ^ 5. My days are in the 
yellow leaf: cf. Macbeth, V. ii. 22, 23, "My way of life is fallen into the sear, the yellow 
leaf." 

(174) 23, 24. The Spartan when killed or severely wounded in battle was borne off the 
field upon his shield. Byron imphes that Greece was now animated by the same bold spirit 
of freedom which made the ancient Spartans fight to the death rather than yield; the Greeks 
were in the midst of their heroic and successful rebellion (1821-29) against Turkish rule. 
H 26-28. Byron was justly proud of his ancestry. His mother was descended from James I. 



538 



ENGLISH POEMS 



His paternal ancesters can be traced back to the time of the Norman Conquest, and rendered 
distinguished service on many battlefields. Cf. the following stanzas from "On Leaving 
Newstead Abbey," one of the poems in iJowr J o/ /(f/eneij; 

Of the mail-covered barons, who proudly to battle 
Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain. 

The escutcheon and shield, which with every blast rattle, 
Are the only sad vestiges now that remain. 

Paul and Hubert, too, sleep in the valley of Cressy; 

For the safety of Edward and England they fell: 
My fathers! the tears of your country redress ye; 

How you fought, how you died, still her annals can tell. 

On Marston, with Rupert, 'gainst traitors contending. 
Four brothers enriched with their blood the bleak field, 

For the rights of a monarch their country defending. 
Till death their attachment to royalty sealed. 

Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing 

From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu ! 
Abroad or at home, your remembrance imparting 

New courage, he '11 think upon glory and you. 

Contemporary Criticism 

The poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods nor men are said 
to permit. Indeed we do not recollect to have seen a quantity of verse with so few deviations 
in either direction from that exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and 

can no more get above or below the level than if they were so much stagnant water 

We must beg leave seriously to assure him that the mere rhyming of the final syllable, even 
when accompanied by the presence of a certain number of feet, — nay, although (which does 
not always happen) those feet should scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately 
upon the fingers, — is not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe that a 
certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to constitute a poem; and that 
a poem in the present day, to be read, must contain at least one thought either in a little degree 
different from the ideas of former writers or differently expressed But whatever judg- 
ment may be passed on the poems of this noble minor, it seems we must take them as we find 
them, and be content; for they are the last we shall ever have from him. He is at best, he 
says, but an intruder into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like thorough- 
bred poets; and "though he once roved a careless mountaineer in the Highlands of Scotland," 
he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. Moreover, he expects no profit from his publica- 
tion; and whether it succeeds or not, "it is highly improbable, from his situation and pursuits 
hereafter," that he should again condescend to be an author. Therefore let us take what we 
get and be thankful. What right have we poor devils to be nice ? We are well off to have got 
so much from a man of this lord's station, who does not live in a garret, but "has the sway" 
of Newstead Abbey. Again we say, let us be thankful; and, with honest Sancho, bid God 
bless the giver, nor look the gift-horse in the mouth. — The Edinburgh Review, January, 
1808, on Hours of Idleness. (The article was attributed to Francis Jeffrey, but is now known 
to have been written by Henry Brougham, one of the founders of the Review, and Lord Chan- 
cellor of England in 1830-34.) 

If the finest poetry be that which leaves the deepest impression on the minds of its readers 
— and this is not the worst test of its excellence — Lord Byron, we think, must be allowed to 
take precedence of all his distinguished contemporaries. He has not the variety of Scott, nor 
the delicacy of Campbell, nor the absolute truth of Crabbe, nor the polished sparklmg of Moore; 
but in force of diction, and inextinguishable energy of sentiment, he clearly surpasses them 
all. "Words that breathe and thoughts that burn" are not merely the ornaments but the 
common staple of his poetry; and he is not inspired or impressive only in some happy passages, 



NOTES 539 

but through the whole body and tissue of his composition. It was an unavoidable condition, 
perhaps, of this higher excellence that his scene should be narrow and his persons few. To 
compass such ends as he had in view it was necessary to reject all ordinary agents and all 
trivial combinations. He could not possibly be amusing or ingenious or playful, or hope to 
maintain the requisite pitch of interest by the recitation of sprightly adventures or the opposi- 
tion of common characters. To produce great effects, in short, he felt that it was necessary 
to deal only with the greater passions, with the exaltations of a daring fancy and the errors of a 
lofty intellect, with the pride, the terrors, and the agonies of strong emotion — the fire and air 

alone of our human elements The great success of this singular production ["Childe 

Harold's Pilgrimage "], indeed, has always appeared to us an extraordinary proof of its merits; 
for, with all its genius, it does not belong to a sort of poetry that rises easily to popularity. It 
has no story or action, very little variety of character, and a great deal of reasoning and reflec- 
tion of no very attractive tenor. It is substantially a contemplative and ethical work, diversi- 
fied with fine description, and adorned or overshaded by the perpetual presence of one emphatic 
person, who is sometimes the author, and sometimes the object, of the reflections on which 
the interest is chiefly rested. It required, no doubt, great force of writing and a decided tone 
of originality to recommend a performance of this sort so powerfully as this has been recom- 
mended to public notice and admiration; and those high characteristics belong perhaps still 
more eminently to the part [Canto III] that is now before us than to any of the former. There 
is the same stern and lofty disdain of mankind and their ordinary pursuits and enjoyments, 
with the same bright gaze on Nature, and the same magic power of giving interest and effect 
to her delineations, but mixed up> we think, with deeper and more matured reflections and a 

more intense sensibility to all that is grand or lovely in the external world Beautiful 

as this poetry is, it is a relief at last to close the volume. We cannot maintain our accustomed 
tone of levity, or even speak like calm literary judges, in the midst of these agonizing trances of a 
wounded and distempered spirit. Even our admiration is at last swallowed up in a most pain- 
ful feeling of pity and of wonder. It is impossible to mistake these for fictitious sorrows, 
conjured up for the purpose of poetical effect. There is a dreadful tone of sincerity, and an 
energy that cannot be counterfeited, in the expression of wretchedness and alienation from 
human kind, which occurs in every page of this publication; and as the author has at last 
spoken out in his own person, and unbosomed his griefs a great deal too freely to his readers, 
the offense now would be to entertain a doubt of their reality. We certainly have no hope of 
preaching him into philanthropy and cheerfulness; but it is impossible not to mourn over such 
a catastrophe of such a mind. — The Edinburgh Review, December, 1816, on "Childe Harold's 
Pilgrimage," Canto III, "The Prisoner of Chillon," etc. (The article was written by Francis 
Jeffrey.) 

That Lord Byron has never written anything more decisively and triumphantly expres- 
sive of the greatness of his genius, will be allowed by all who have read this poem. That 
(laying all its manifold and grievous offences for a moment out of our view) it is by far the most 
admirable specimen of the mixture of ease, strength, gayety, and seriousness extant in the whole 
body of English poetry, is a proposition to which, we are almost as well persuaded, very few of 
them will refuse their assent. With sorrow and humiliation do we speak it, the poet has 
devoted his powers to the worst of purposes and passions; and it increases his guilt and our 
sorrow that he has devoted them entire. What the immediate effect of the poem may be on 
contemporary literature, we cannot pretend to guess, too happy could we hope that its lessons 
of boldness and vigor in language and versification and conception might be attended to, as 
they deserve to be, without any stain being suffered to fall on the purity of those who minister 
to the general shape and culture of the public mind, from the mischievous insults against all 
good principle and all good feeling which have been unworthily embodied in so many elements 
of fascination. The moral strain of the whole poem is pitched in the lowest key, and if the 
genius of the author lifts him now and then out of his pollution, it seems as if he regretted the 
elevation and made all haste to descend again Love, honor, patriotism, religion, are 



540 ENGLISH POEMS 



mentioned only to be scoffed at and derided, as if their sole resting-place were, or ought to be, 
in the bosoms of fools. It appears, in short, as if this miserable man, having exhausted every 
species of sensual gratification, having drained the cup of sin even to its bitterest dregs, were 
resolved to show us that he is no longer a human being, even in his frailties, but a cool, uncon- 
cerned fiend, laughing with a detestable glee over the whole of the better and worse elements of 
which human life is composed — treating well nigh with equal derision the most pure of virtues 
and the most odious of vices, dead alike to the beauty of the one and the deformity of the 
other — a mere heartless despiser of that frail but noble humanity whose type was never exhib- 
ited in a shape of more deplorable degradation than in his own contemptuously distinct deline- 
ation of himself. — Blackwood's Magazine, August, 1819, on "Don Juan," Cantos I and II. 

THOMAS MOORE 

(174) The Harp That Once throdgh Tara's Halls. One of the Irish Melodies, 
which appeared at intervals during the years 1808-34. H i. Tara's halls: Tara, near Dublin, 
was a residence of the Irish kings. 

(175) Lesbia Hath a Beaming Eye. One of the Irish Melodies. 

(176) Oh, Come to Me when Daylight Sets. A Venetian air in National Airs, 
1818-27. 

(177) Oft, in the Stilly Night. A Scotch air in National Airs. 

(177) The Twopenny Post-Bag. "The bag from which the following letters are 
selected was dropped by a twopenny postman about two months since, and picked up by an 
emissary of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, who, supposing it might materially assist 
the private researches of that institution, immediately took it to his employers Unluck- 
ily, however, it turned out, upon examination, that the discoveries of profligacy which it 
enabled them to make lay chiefly in those upper regions of society which their well-bred 
regulations forbid them to molest or meddle with. In consequence .... the bag, with its 
violated contents, was sold for a trifle to a friend of mine. It happened that I had been just 
then seized with an ambition .... to publish something or other in the shape of a book; 
and it occurred to me that .... a few of these twopenny-post epistles, turned into easy verse, 
would be as light and popular a task as I could possibly select for a commencement." — Preface 
to the first edition. 

(178) 9. Townsend: John T. Townshend, recently a lord of the treasury and lord of the 
bedchamber (cf. 1. 13, where there seems also to be an allusion to Hermes, the patron of thieves 
and the conductor of the dead). H 16. R-g-nt: Prince George, afterward George IV; he was 
made regent in 181 1 because the king had become insane. H 34. Patriot monsters, from Spain: 
the war against Napoleon had recently been raging in Spain, and the English were the Span- 
iards' allies. ^38. Lord George: Byron, the first canto of whose "Childe Harold's Pil- 
grimage" treated mostly of Spain. ^[40. Peninsular: Spain was often referred to as "the 
Peninsula." II 43. Lord L-v-rp- -I's: the Earl of Liverpool had until recently been secretary 
for war. 

(179) 53- monster: "Alluding, I suppose, to the Latin advertisement of a /m«« Ka/«rae 
in the newspapers lately." — Moore's note. 

(179) Lalla Rookh. Lines 1-119 in the last division, "The Light of the Haram." 
T[ I. Vale 0} Cashmere: Cashmere is north of India, in the region of the Himalayan Moun- 
tains; the inhabitants are mostly Mohammedan; the Vale of Cashmere, 5,000 feet above the 
sea, and encircled by high mountains, is of wonderful beauty. H 12. magian = priest. 

(181) 92-95. "It is the custom among the women to employ the maazeen to chaunt 
from the gallery of the nearest minaret, which on that occasion is illuminated; and the 
women assembled at the house respond at intervals with a ziraleet, or joyous chorus." — • 
Russell, quoted by Moore. II97. the silken swing. "The swing is a favorite pastime in 
the East, as promoting a circulation of air extremely refreshing in those sultry climates."— 



NOTES 



541 



Richaxdson, quoted by Moore. "The swings are adorned with festoons. This pastime is 
accompanied with music of voices and of instruments, hired by the masters of the swings." 
— Thevenot, quoted by Moore. ^ io8, 109. "An old commentator of the Chou-King says 
the ancients having remarked that a current of water made some of the stones near its banks 
send forth a sound, they detached some of them, and, being charmed with the delightful 
sound they emitted, constructed king, or musical irstruments, of them." — Grosier, quoted 
by Moore. 

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 

In "A Defence of Poetry" (1821) Shelley describes poetry and its function as follows: 

"Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds. 

We are aware of evanescent visitations of thought and feeling, sometimes associated with 

place or person, sometimes regarding our own mind alone, and always arising unforeseen 

and departing unbidden, but elevating and delightful beyond all expression It is as 

it were the interpenetration of a diviner nature through our ovm; but its footsteps are like 
those of a wind over the sea, which the morning calm erases, and whose traces remain only, 
as on the wrinkled sand which paves it. These and corresponding conditions of being are 
experienced principally by those of the most delicate sensibility and the most enlarged ima- 
gination; and the state of mind produced by them is at war with every base desire Poets 

are not only subject to these experiences as spirits of the most refined organization, but they 

can color all that they combine with the evanescent hues of this ethereal world 

Poetry thus makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful in the world; it arrests the 
vanishing apparitions which haunt the interlunations of life, and, veiling them or in language 
or in form, sends them forth among mankind, bearing sweet news of kindred joy to those 
with whom their sisters abide — abide, because there is no portal of expression from the caverns 
of the spirit which they inhabit into the universe of things. Poetry redeems from decay the 
visitations of the divinity in man. Poetry turns all things to loveliness: it exalts the beauty 
of that which is most beautiful, and it adds beauty to that which it most deformed; it marries 
exultation and horror, grief and pleasure, eternity and change; it subdues to union under 
its light yoke all irreconcilable things. It transmutes all that it touches, and every form 
moving within the radiance of its presence is changed by wondrous sympathy to an incarna- 
tion of the spirit which it breathes; its secret alchemy turns to potable gold the poisonous 
waters which flow from death through life; it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, 
and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty which is the spirit of its forms." 

(182) Queen Mab. Sec. VII. 1-49. The passage is given as an example of Shelley's 
crude early thought and violent language about orthodox Christianity of his day. He himself 
in later years recognized the crudeness of the poem: "A poem, entitled 'Queen Mab,' was 

written by me, at the age of eighteen, I dare say in a sufficiently intemperate spu-it I 

doubt not but that it is perfectly worthless in point of literary composition; and that in all 
that concerns moral and political speculation, as well as in the subtler discriminations of 
metaphysical and religious doctrine, it is still more crude and immature." — Letter to Tlu 
Examiner, June 22, 1821. The framework for the didacticism of the poem is simple. Queen 
Mab takes the spirit of lanthe to her palace in the heavens: 

Yet likest evening's vault, that faery hall! 
As heaven, low resting on the wave, it spread 

Its floors of flashing light. 

Its vast and azure dome. 

Its fertile golden islands 

Floating on a silver sea; 
Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted 
Through clouds of circumambient darkness, 
And pearly battlements around 
Looked o'er the immense of heaven. 



542 ENGLISH POEMS 



Here, as they survey past, present, and future, the fairy instructs the spirit of lanthe in the 
true doctrine of man and God. H 13. There is no Cod. " This negation must be understood 
solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit, coetemal with the 
universe, remains unshaken." — Shelley. H 19. /erOT= termination, limit. 

(183) 23. exterminable. The word really means "capable of being exterminated," 
which would be nonsense here; Shelley may have used it, loosely, in the sense of "out of 
terms or bounds," "illimitable." W. M. Rossetti conjectured that the correct reading was 
"inexterminable" or "interminable." H 30. Seeva: the third member of the Hindu Trinity; 
the same as "Shiva." Foh: the Chinese name for Buddha. 

(183) Alastor. Lines 1-49. The passage is given partly as a specimen of Shelley's 
blank verse; cf. Wordsworth's "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey," with 
regard to verse, style, and love of nature. Professor Alexander points out phrases taken 
from Wordsworth: "natural piety" (1. 3), and "obstinate questionings" (1. 26). 

(185) Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. "The 'Hymn to Intellectual Beauty' was 
conceived during his voyage around the lake [of Geneva] with Lord Byron." — Mrs. Shelley. 
Shelley's conception of the Eternal Beauty is based upon Plato; cf. the following passage 
from Plato's "Banquet," in Shelley's translation: "He who has been disciplined to this point 
in Love, by contemplating beautiful objects gradually, and in their order, now arriving at 

the end of all that concerns Love, on a sudden beholds a beauty wonderful in its nature 

It is eternal, unproduced, indestructible; neither subject to increase nor decay: not, like 
other things, partly beautiful and partly deformed; not at one time beautiful and at another 
time not; not beautiful in relation to one thing and deformed in relation to another; not here 
beautiful and there deformed; not beautiful in the estimation of one person and deformed 
in that of another; nor can this supreme beauty be figured to the imagination, like a beautiful 
face or beautiful hands or any portion of the body, nor like any discourse nor any science. 
Nor does it subsist in any other that lives or is, either in earth, or in heaven, or in any other 
place; but it is eternally uniform and consistent, and monoeidic with itself. All other things 
are beautiful through a participation of it, with this one condition, that, although they are 
subject to production and decay, it never becomes more or less, or endures any change. 
.... Such a life as this, .... spent in the contemplation of the beautiful, is the life for 
men to live; which if you chance ever to experience you will esteem far beyond gold and rich 
garments, and even those lovely persons whom you and many others now gaze on with astonish- 
ment, and are prepared neither to eat nor drink so that you may behold and live forever 
with these objects of your love ! What then shall we imagine to be the aspect of the supreme 
beauty itself, simple, pure, uncontaminated with the intermixture of human flesh and colors, 
and all other idle and unreal shapes attendant on mortality; the divine, the original, the 
supreme, the monoeidic beautiful itself ? What must be the life of him who dwells with and 
gazes on that which it becomes us all to seek ? Think you not that to him alone is accorded 
the prerogative of bringing forth, not images and shadows of virtue, for he is in contact not 
with a shadow but with reality, with virtue itself, in the production and nourishment of 
which he becomes dear to the gods, and, if such a privilege is conceded to any human being, 
himself immortal." 

(185) 1-4. Cf. the extract from "A Defence of Poetry," on p. 541. H 26. these 
responses=resx>onse& to these questions. 

(186) 45, 46. Darkness is spoken of as nourishing the dying flame because it makes 
the flame seem brighter. 

(187) Ode to the West Wind. "This poem was conceived and chiefly written in 
a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind 
whose temperature is at once mild and animating was collecting the vapors which pour 
down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest 
of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the 
Cisalpine regions." — Shelley, H 9. Thine azure sister of the Spring: the south wind, laden 



" NOTES 543 

with blue haze in the springtime. H 18. aw^e/i=messengers, carriers (Greek ayYeXos, a 
messenger). 

(188) 21. maenad: a priestess of Bacchus; the maenads celebrated the festivals of 
the god by frenzied songs and dances. K 24. dosing night: the night-sky closing down 
over the earth. K 32-34. Baiae, a few miles from Naples, was a favorite seaside resort 
of the ancient Romans. Cf. the following lines from "Naples" in Roger's Italy 
(1822-28): 

Delicious Baiae. Here (what would they not ?) 
The masters of the earth, unsatisfied. 
Built in the sea; and now the boatman steers 
O'er many a crypt and vault yet glimmering. 
O'er many a broad and indestructible arch. 
The deep foundations of their palaces. 

II 39-42. "The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes sympathizes with 
that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which 
announce it." — Shelley. 

(189) 63. dead thoughts: Shelley's ideas about the reform of religion, society, and 
government had been ignored or rejected. 

(189) The Indian Serenade. The poem exists in several different forms, and it is 
impossible to determine what was the final text adopted by Shelley. The verses were first 
published in The Liberal, in 1822; Mrs. Shelley published them among Posthumous Poems, 
in 1824. Three manuscripts of the poem are known: one given to Miss Sophia Stacey in 
1819; another found on Shelley's person after his death, and described by Browning in a 
letter to Leigh Hunt, October 6, 1857; a third, in the Harvard library. The second manu- 
script is followed here. 

(190) The Mask of Anarchy. The mask described is of the earlier sort — ^merely a 
procession and pageant, with masks and disguising costumes. The manuscript sent to 
Hunt by Shelley has a sub-title, "Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester." 
The massacre occmred on August 16, 1819, and was occasioned by the holding of a mass- 
meeting in the interest of parliamentary reform. The meeting had been forbidden by the 
authorities, and three htmdred hussars were ordered to disperse the crowd; six persons were 
killed, and some seventy-five injured. "He was residing near Leghorn .... when the 
news of the Manchester Massacre reached us; it aroused in him violent emotions of indigna- 
tion and compassion. The great truth that the many, if accordant and resolute, could 
control the few, as was shown some years after, made him long to teach his injured country- 
men how to resist. Inspired by these feelings, he wrote 'The Mask of Anarchy,' which he 
sent to his friend, Leigh Hunt, to be inserted in the Examiner, of which Hunt was then 

editor The poem was written for the people, and is therefore in a more popular 

tone than usual." — Mrs. Shelley. "You do not tell me whether you have received my lines 

on the Manchester affair. They are of the exoteric species The great thing to do is 

to hold the balance between popular impatience and tyrannical obstinacy; to inculcate with 
fervor both the right of resistance and the duty of forbearance. You know my principles 
incite me to take aU the good I can get in politics, forever aspiring to something more. I 
am one of those whom nothing wiU fuUy satisfy, but who are ready to be partially satisfied 
by all that is practicable. We shall see." — Letter to Hunt, November, 1819. Cf. Mrs. 
Shelley's note on "Queen Mab": "He did not in his youth look forward to gradual 
improvement; nay, in those days of intolerance, now almost forgotten, it seemed as 
easy to look forward to the sort of millennium of freedom and brotherhood, which he 
thought the proper state of mankind, as to the present reign of moderation and improve- 
ment." 

(190) 6. Castlereagh: Viscount Castlereagh, who had been secretary for Ireland and 
secretary for war, was at this time foreign secretary; he was a leader of the aristocratic and 
reactionary party, freely expressing his contempt for the populace; in 1822 he committed 



544 ENGLISH POEMS 



suicide in a fit of insanity. H 15. Eldon: Lord High Chancellor; he it was who had recently 
given a decision denying to Shelley the custody of his children by his first wife, because of 
his atheistical and immoral opinions in their relation to conduct, and the rearing of British 
subjects; see 11. 18-21. 

(191) 24. Sidmonth: Viscount Sidmouth, home secretary, who by his repressive 
measures was responsible for the massacre. H 30-33. "And I looked, and behold a pale 
horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." — Revela- 
tions 6 : 8. 

(193) 112. graJw=color (at first, "red" from the small, grainlike bodies of insects 
used in making a red dye; then the meaning was extended to any kind of color). 

(197) 244-49. A reference to the French Revolution and the union of the powers 
against France. K 251. like him following Christ: Luke 18: 22. 

(200) The Cloud. "There are others, such as the 'Ode to the Skylark' and 'The 
Cloud,' which in the opinion of many critics bear a purer poetical stamp than any other 
of his productions. They were written as his mind prompted, listening to the caroling of 
the bird, aloft in the azure sky of Italy, or marking the cloud as it sped across the heavens, 
while he floated in his boat on the Thames." — Mrs. Shelley. 

(201) 33. rac^ = flying broken cloud. 

(202) 81. cetwiaph=axi empty tomb; here, "the blue dome of air." 

(203) To A Skylark. "It was on a beautiful summer evening, while wandering 
among the lanes, whose myrtle hedges were the bowers of the butterflies, that we heard the 
caroling of the skylark, which inspired one of the most beautiful of his poems." — Mrs. Shel- 
ley. H 15. unbodied joy. Professor Craik, without any authority, changed the first word 
to "embodied," on the ground that "unbodied" must have been a mistake. But both Shel- 
ley's edition and Mrs. Shelley's have "unbodied"; and in the Harvard manuscript (in which 
this poem is in Shelley's hand) the "un " is clear and unmistakable. Furthermore, "unbod- 
ied" goes better with the first stanza, in which the skylark is called a "spirit" because its 
song is so ethereal and heavenly; and it is also what would be expected from a Platonic 
idealist like Shelley, who believed that the body was a clog to the spirit and that to be freed 
from it was a blessing (cf. "Adonais," 11. 334-51). H 22. silver sphere: the "star of heaven" 
(1. 18). 

(204) 55. these: in the Harvard manuscript the word seems to be "those." 

(205) 80. knew: for "knewest." 

(206) Epipsychidion. Lines 388-391. "The meaning of this title has been much 
discussed. Without pretending to any classical authority, I may note that I cannot discern 
any significance beyond the simple one, 'a little poem about the soul.' " — -Buxton Forman. 
"The title of this poem .... is translated by Shelley himself in the line [1. 238], 

Whither 't was fled, this soul out of my soul, 

and the word Epipsychidion is coined by him to express the idea of that line. lb might mean 
something which is placed on a soul as if to complete or crown it. It was probably intended 
by Shelley to be also a diminutive of endearment from epipsyche. There is no such Greek 
word as cn-i-i^ux^. But epipsyche would mean 'a soul upon a soul,' just as epicycle, in the 
Ptolemaic astronomy, meant 'a circle upon a circle.' Such 'a soul on a soul' might be para- 
phrased as a soul which is the complement of, and therefore responsive to, another soul like 
itself but in higher place and of a higher order. The lower would then seek to be united 
with the higher, because in such union it would be made perfect and the pre-established har- 
mony between them be actually realized." — Stopford A. Brooke, in a note to "Epipsychidion," 
Publications of the Shelley Society (18S7). One objection to this interpretation is that ^vx^^ 
being feminine, would naturally take the feminine form of the adjective, and the title 
would be "Epipsychidia." Another interpretation would derive the word from en-t, "upon," 
and i/'uxi6io>', an actual Greek word, meaning "little soul," "darHng," the same as the 



NOTES 545 

Latin "animula"; " Epipsychidion " would then mean "upon my darling," or "a poem upon 
my darling." The lady to whom the poem is addressed was Emilia Viviani, the daughter 
of an Italian count, whose second wife had induced him to immure Emilia in a convent near 
Pisa. Shelley and Mrs. SheUey became deeply interested in her, and the poet idealized her 
into the embodiment of perfect beauty and love that he was forever seeking. He was after- 
ward disillusioned, as his words below reveal. "It is to be published simply for the esoteric 
few; and I make its author a secret, to avoid the malignity of those who turn sweet food 
into poison, transforming all they touch into the corruption of their own natures." — Letter 
to Oilier, February i6, 1821. "The 'Epipsychidion' is a mystery; as to real flesh and blood, 
you know that I do not deal in those articles; you might as well go to a gin-shop for a leg 
of mutton as expect anything human or earthly from me." — Letter to Gisborne, October 22, 
1821. "The 'Epipsychidion' I cannot look at; the person whom it celebrates was a cloud 
instead of a Juno, and poor Ixion starts from the centain: that was the offspring of his own 

embrace It is an idealized history of my life and feelings. I think one is always in 

love with something or other; the error, and I confess it is not easy for spirits cased in flesh 
and blood to avoid it, consists in seeking in a mortal image the likeness of what is, perhaps, 
eternal." — Letter to Gisborne, June 18, 1822. In its conception of love the poem 
owes much to Plato's "Banquet," and something to Dante's " La Vita Nuova " and "II 
Convito." 

(206) 13. continents: used in the literal sense, "the things holding it in," as often in 
Shakspere. 

(209) 120. Parian: Paros, an island in the Aegean Sea, was famous for its white 
marble. 

(210) 170. lighis= eyes. 

(211) Adonais. "Adonais" is evidently a variant of "Adonis," the name of the beau- 
tiful youth, loved by Venus, who was killed by a wild boar; the analogy with Keats, whose 
early death Shelley ascribed to "savage criticism," is obvious. Why Shelley chose this par- 
ticular form is not clear. Professor Hales thinks it may have been made, not quite correctly, 
on the analogy of such a word as "Thebais" (®T)i3ais), "a song about Thebes," to designate 
at once the elegy and the subject of it. Dr. Furnivall suggested that it might be based on 
"Adonia" ('ASuvta), the term for the women's yearly mourning for Adonis. 

SheUey and Keats first met at Leigh Hunt's house, as early as 1817, but they never 
became intimate. "I knew personally but little of Keats; but on the news of his situation 
I wrote to him, suggesting the propriety of trying the Italian climate, and inviting him to 
join me. Unfortunately he did not allow me." — Canceled passage in Shelley's preface to 
"Adonais." "Keats's new volume has arrived to us, and the fragment called 'Hyperion' 
promises for him that he is destined to become one of the first writers of the age. His other 

things are imperfect enough Where is Keats now? I am anxiously expecting him 

in Italy, when I shall take care to bestow every possible attention on him I intend to 

be the physician both of his body and his soul, — to keep the one warm, and to teach the other 
Greek and Spanish. I am aware indeed, in part, that I am nourishing a rival who will far 
surpass me; and this is an additional motive, and will be an added pleasure." — Letter to 
Mrs. Hunt, November 11, 1820. 

In the earlier stanzas SheUey imitated the Greek poets Bion and Moschus, of the third 
century b. c. The foUowing passages from SheUey's unfinished metrical translation and 
from Mr. Lang's prose version afford interesting paraUels with "Adonais": 

I mourn Adonis dead — loveliest Adonis — 
Dead, dead Adonis — and the Loves lament. 
Sleep no more, Venus, wrapped in purple woof. 
Wake, violet-stoled queen, and weave the crown 
Of Death— 't is Misery caUs — for he is dead. 



A deep, deep wound Adonis . . 



546 



ENGLISH POEMS 



A deeper Venus bears upon her heart. 

See, his beloved dogs are gathering round— 

The oread nymphs are weeping. Aphrodite 

With hair unbound is wandering through the woods, 

Wildered, ungirt, unsandalled — the thorns pierce 

Her hastening feet and drink her sacred blood. 

Bitterly screaming out she is driven on 

Through the long vales; and her Assyrian boy, 

Her love, her husband, calls. 

The oaks and mountains cry, Ai ! ai ! Adonis ! 

The springs their waters change to tears, and weep — 

The flowers are withered up with grief .... 

Ai ! ai ! Adonis is dead 

Echo resounds Adonis is dead. 

Who will weep not thy dreadful woe, O Venus ? 
Soon as she saw and knew the mortal wound 
Of her Adonis — saw the life-blood flow 
From his fair thigh, now wasting, wailing loud 
She clasped him, and cried "Stay, Adonis! 
Stay, dearest one, — - 

and mix my lips with thine ! 
Wake yet a while, Adonis — oh, but once ! 
That I may kiss thee now for the last time — 
But for as long as one short kiss may live ! 

— Bion's "Lament for Adonis." 

"This kiss will I treasure, even as thyself, Adonis, since, ah ill-fated, thou art fleeing 
me, thou art fleeing far, Adonis, and art faring to Acheron, to that hateful king and cruel, 
while wretched I yet live, being a goddess, and may not follow thee! .... For why, ah 
overbold, didst thou follow the chase, and, being so fair, why wert thou thus overhardy to 
fight with beasts ? .... He reclines, the delicate Adonis, in his raiment of purple, and 
around him the Loves are weeping, and groaning aloud, clipping their locks for Adonis. 
And one upon his shafts, another on his bow is treading, and one hath loosed the sandal 
of Adonis, and another hath broken his own feathered quiver, and one in a golden vessel 
bears water, and another laves the wound, and another from behind him with his wings is 
fanning Adonis." — Bion's "Lament for Adonis." 

Ye Dorian woods and waves, lament aloud; 
Augment your tide, O streams, with fruitless tears; 
For the beloved Bion is no more. 
Let every tender herb and plant and flower, 
From each dejected bud and drooping bloom. 
Shed dews of hquid sorrow, and with breath 
Of melancholy sweetness on the wind 
Diffuse its languid love; let roses blush. 
Anemones grow paler for the loss 
Their dells have known; and thou, O hyacinth. 
Utter thy legend now — yet more, dumb flower. 
Than "ah! alas!" — thine is no common grief — 
Bion the sweetest singer is no more. 

— Moschus's "Lament for Bion." 

"And Echo in the rocks laments that thou art silent, and no more she mimics thy voice. 
And in sorrow for thy fall the trees cast down their fruit, and all the flowers have faded. 
.... Poison came, Bion, to thy mouth, thou didst know poison. To such lips as thine 
did it come, and was not sweetened ? What mortal was so cruel that could mix poison for 
thee, or who could give thee the venom that heard thy voice ? surely he had no music in his 
soul." — Moschus's "Lament for Bion." 

(211) 5. obscure compeers: the hours not marked by so memorable an event as the 
death of Keats. H 12. Urania. Urania ("the heavenly one," from ovpavog, the sky) was 
the muse of astronomy, and there seems to be no special fitness in calling her the mother of 



NOTES 547 

Keats. But the name was also applied to Aphrodite, when she was thought of as the goddess 
of spiritual, heavenly love, in distinction from earthly love. Such love and beauty Shelley 
believed to be the central principle of the universe, and the inspiration of aU high poetry; 
and this Urania might weU be called the mother of Keats. K 15. one: one Echo. 

(212) 29. He died: the reference is to Milton. II 31. pride: the object of "trampled" 
and "mocked," 1. 33. H 34. lust and blood: upon the restoration of the monarchy and of 
the estabUshed church in England, in 1660, loose Uving became the fashion; and leaders in 
the rebelUon against Charles I were executed. K3S. clear sprite: cf. "Lycidas," 1. 70, 
"Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise." If 36. the third: if Shelley was thinking 
of poets in general, the other two would doubtless be Homer and Shakspere; but he may 
have been thinking of epic poets only, as in his "Defence of Poetry" (written in the same 
year with " Adonais"), in which he says, "Homer was the first and Dante the second epic poet; 
.... Milton was the third. 1 40. tapers: minor poets, happy in knowing their limitations 
and not attempting what they could not do well; their reward is that their works still Uve. 
1[ 41. suns: either really great poets who have been undeservedly forgotten, or, more prob- 
ably, poets who attempted greater things than they were capable of, and failed, others 
more sublime: great poets, Kke Lucan, Chatterton, and the others mentioned in D. 396-405, 
who died before their powers matured. % 44. some yet live: Uving poets, mahgned or unap- 
preciated, Kke Byron, Wordsworth, and Shelley himself. If 47. thy widowhood: to say that 
the muse of high poetry is widowed implies that she is forsaken and forlorn, i. e., that poetry 
at that time was neglected and unappreciated, as was shown by the experience of Keats, 
Shelley, and others, t 48, 49. An allusion to Keats's "Isabella, or the Pot of Basil," in 
which a maiden hides the head of her murdered lover in a pot of basil, and waterS the plant 
with her tears. If 55. capital: Rome, where Keats had gone for his health. If 58. Come 
away: hasten to his death-chamber, while his body is still beautiful in death. Mr. Rossetti 
takes the words in the opposite sense — "Come away from the death chamber and leave him 
to his rest"; but the objection to this is that the following stanzas keep our thoughts in the 
presence of the dead and describe what takes place there. 

(213) 67. <race= mark out. If 68. his extreme way: Keats's last path, her: Corrup- 
tion's. II 69. The eternal Hunger: Corruption; some take the phrase to refer to Death, 
but in the preceding stanza Death is mascuUne, while the Hunger is feminine (see "her," 
1. 70). If 80. sweet pain: apparently the pain of birth (cf. "whence they sprung," 1. 79); 
in accordance with the personification of the dreams the pain is attributed to them, but the 
allusion, at bottom, is doubtless to the "sweet pain" of the poet in composition. II 97, 98. 
The meaning seems to be that the Dream would lessen her grief by diverting her mind to a 
smaller loss, that of her bow and arrows. H 99. barbed fire: the barbed arrows, which appear 
to be taken as symbols of the burning pain in her heart. 

(214) 102-4. Keats's poetry won entrance even into the critical, scrutinizing intellect 
("wit"), and it also moved the emotions. If 107. <;/i^i= embraces. If 133. Echo, spurned 
by Narcissus, pined away into a mere voice. 

(215) 140, 141. Hyacinth, a beautiful youth, was beloved by ApoUo; one day he was 
killed in a game of quoits, and the god made the flower, hyacinth, to spring up from his blood. 
Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection in the water, and pined to death; his body was 
turned into the flower, narcissus. If 145. An allusion at once to the rich melody of Keats's 
verse and to his "Ode to a Nightingale." If 151-53. SheUey beMeved, erroneously, that the 
criticism of Keats's poetry was directly responsible for his death: "The savage criticism on 
his 'Endymion,' which appeared in the Quarterly Review [see p. 561], produced the most 
violent effect on his susceptible mind; the agitation thus originated ended in the rupture 
of a blood-vessel in the lungs; a rapid consumption ensued, and the ensuing acknowledgements 
from more candid critics [see p. 563] of the true greatness of his powers, were ineffectual to 
heal the wound thus wantonly inflicted." — Shelley's preface. Cf. the less sympathetic refer- 
ence by Byron ("Don Juan," XI. Ux): 



548 ENGLISH POEMS 



John Keats, who was killed off by one critique, 

Just as he really promised something great 
If not intelligible, without Greek 

Contrived to talk about the gods of late, 
Much as they might have been supposed to speak. 

Poor fellow ! His was an untoward fate : 
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle. 
Should let itself be snuffed out by an article. 

II i6o. brere = hnax. If 177. <iJei= is annihilated, that alone which knows: the mind. 

(216) 179. sightless='mvisib\e.\ cf. Macbeth, I. vii. 23, "the sightless couriers of 
the air." atom: the mind. H 180. repose: not necessarily annihilation; the poet is not 
yet answering his own question, but merely describing death as it appears to the senses. 
^ 186. death, who lends what life must borrow. "I think Shelley may intend to say that, in 
this our mortal state, death is the solid and permanent fact; it is rather a world of death than 
of life. The phenomena of life are but like a transitory loan from the great emporium, 
death." — W. M. Rossetti. If 208-16. The lines describe the treatment that poetry and poets 
get in an imappreciative age, and their persistence in their mission; cf. "To a Skylark," 
II. 36-40. 

(217) 238. unpastured=unied, and hence more ravenous, dragon: the critic. Shelley 
seems to have been aware that the lines attacking the critics are not of a piece with 
the rest of the poem: "It is a lament on the death of poor Keats, with some interposed stabs 
on the assassins of his peace and of his fame."- — Letter to Oilier, June 8, 1821. "I have 
dipped my pen in consuming fire for his destroyers: otherwise the style is calm and solemn." 
— Letter to Gisborne, June 16, 1821. If 240. Wisdom the mirrored shield: there is perhaps 
a twofold allusion to the shield of Athene, goddess of wisdom, and to the polished magic 
mirrors of the old romances, which dazzled the hostile beholder (see Orlando Furioso, Canto 
IV). If 242. filled its a-escent sphere: reached the maturity of its powers. 1| 250. The 
Pythian of the age: Byron. "Pj^hian" was one of the titles of Apollo, because he slew the 
Python, a serpent who delivered oracles at Delphi, one arrow: "English Bards and Scotch 
Reviewers." 

(218) 262. mountain shepherds: in accordance with the fiction of the older pastoral 
poetry, in which shepherds sing, to their pipes, songs of their own composition, the poet 
friends of Keats are spoken of as shepherds; "mountain" may be used merely as a general 
characterization of shepherds, but very likely it is meant to suggest the free spirit and elevated 
tone of the poets mentioned. Tf 264. Pilgrim of Eternity: Byron; the name was suggested by his 
"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." His grief was not so great as Shelley implies; see note on 11. 
1 5 1-S3 • Keats 's early poems Byron greatly disliked, partly for their attack on Pope. On receiv- 
ing some books from Miuray, he wrote him (October 12, 1820): "No more Keats, I entreat:, 
flay him alive; if some of you don't, I must skin him myself. There is no bearing the drivel- 
ing idiotism of the manikin." But in a letter to Shelley written April 26, 1821, or before 
"Adonais" was finished, Byron spoke in a different tone, and the reference to him in the 
poem may have been based upon this letter: "I am very sorry to hear what you say of Keats — - 
is it actually true ? I did not think that criticism had been so killing. Though I differ 
from you essentially in your estimate of his performances, I so much abhor all unnecessary 
pain that I would rather he had been seated on the highest peak of Parnassus than have 
perished in such a manner." If 268. lerne: an old name for Ireland. If 269. The sweetest 
lyrist: Moore, who, however, had no personal relations with Keats, her saddest wrong: 
it is uncertain what Shelley had in mind, perhaps the suppression of the Irish insurrection 
of 1803; that was not Ireland's saddest wrong, but Shelley may have thought it was, and 
Moore had sung of the fate of Robert Emmett, a leader in the insurrection. If 271. of less 
note: i. e., less notable than Byron and Moore, not less than "one frail form," which is Shel- 
ley himself. If 276. Aclaon-like. Actaeon, a hunter, who saw Diana bathing, was turned 
into a stag and his own hounds hunted him to death. Shelley spiritualizes the myth, in a 



NOTES 549 

characteristic way, and applies it to his own case: he had caught glimpses of the Absolute 
Beauty revealed in nature, and his life thereafter had been a restless pursuit of it; cf. "Alas- 
tor," "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty," and the letter of June i8, 1822, on p. 545. If 280. 
pardlike=\eo'paid\ike. If 281. a love in desolation masked: an antithesis between love and 
desolation is intended (cf. a similar one between power and weakness, in the next words); 
the poet really loves men and would help them, but being misunderstood and reviled he is 
compelled to live in sad seclusion, as if indifferent to his kind (cf. "neglected and apart," 
1. 2q6). K 289. pansies: cf. iJaw/e^ IV. v. 176, 177, "there is pansies, that's for thoughts"; 
the word comes from the French pensee. overblown: cf. "my dead thoughts," in "Ode 
to the West Wind," 1. 63. If 290. violets: the violet is a symbol of modesty; cf. Shelley's 
"Remembrance" (1821), 1. 19, "Violets for a maiden dead." 

(219) 292. ivy: the ivy is a symbol of constancy in frienship. If 300. The reference 
is to the cruel treatment that both had received; perhaps there is also an implication that 
Shelley, like Keats, would die early, partly because of that treatment. If 301. accents of 
ati unknown land. Mr. Rossetti thinks the meaning may be that he is writing in English, 
a tongue imknovm to the Greek muse, Urania. Professor Alexander thinks that Shelley 
refers to the fact that his poetry is outside the range of most men's sympathy. May it not 
mean that he is writing upon the death of a modern poet ("new sorrow") in the manner 
of the old Greek elegy ("accents of an unknown land")? If 306. like Cain's or Christ's: 
Shelley says, in effect, "The world brands and crowns with thorns two classes of men — 
enemies of the race, like Cain, or misunderstood benefactors of the race, like Christ; there- 
fore, from the mere fact that my brow is branded and ensanguined you cannot tell to which 
class I belong." If 307-15. The lines describe Leigh Hunt, Keats's early friend and patron. 
Severn, the artist, who cared for Keats in his last iUness, thought that they referred to him; 
but SheUey explained, in the preface, that he did not know of Severn's devotion until the 
poem was ready for the press. If 319. nameless worm: the criticism on Keats in the Quar- 
terly Review was unsigned, as was the custom then. 1f322. one breast alone: Shelley seems 
not to have known that the review of "Endymion" in Blackwood's Magazine was still worse 
than the Quarterly's; see p. 562. 

(220) 337. thou: the reviewer. 

(221) 370-87. "He" and "his" throughout these lines refer to Keats. God ("that 
Power") is referred to throughout by neuter pronouns, to express Shelley's disbeUef in the 
personality of the Supreme Principle. If 381. plastic=rao\dmg, shaping. The Eternal 
Spirit of Beauty and Love is thought of as permeating the matter of the world, struggling 
with it from within, and molding it into forms of beauty; matter resists the process, and 
different portions of it yield to the Spirit in varying degrees, which accounts for the varying 
degrees of beauty in material things. Cf. Wordsworth's "Lines Composed a Few Miles 
above Tintern Abbey," 11. 95-102, and Spenser's "Hymne in Honour of Beautie," stanzas 5, 7: 

What time this world's great Work-maister did cast 

To make aU things such as we now behold, 

It seemes that he before his eyes had plast 

A goodly Paterne, to whose perfect mould 

He fashiond them as comely as he could, 

That now so faire and seemely they appeare, 

As nought may be amended any wheare. 

Thereof as every earthly thing partakes 
Or more or lesse, by influence divine. 
So it more faire accordingly it makes. 
And the grosse matter of this earthly myne 
Which clotheth it thereafter doth refyne. 
Doing away the drosse which dims the light 
Of that faire beame which therein is empight. 

The idea goes back to Plato: "The work of the Creator, whenever He looks to the un- 
changeable and fashions the form and nature of His work after an unchangeable pattern, 



550 ENGLISH POEMS 



must necessarily be made fair and perfect Which of the patterns had the Artificer in 

view when He made the world — the pattern of the unchangeable, or of that which is created ? 
.... Every one will see that He must have looked to the eternal, for the world is the fairest 
of creations and He is the best of causes Mind, the ruling power, persuaded neces- 
sity to bring the greater part of created things to perfection, and thus and after this manner 
in the beginning, when the influence of reason got the better of necessity, the universe was 

created God made them [the four elements] the fairest and best, out of things which 

were not fair and good And the ratios of their numbers, motions, and other properties, 

everywhere God, as far as necessity allowed or gave consent, has exactly perfected, and har- 
monized in due proportion." — "Timaeus," Jowett's translation. T] 384. its: the one Spirit's; 
so in the next two Unes. If 385. ai= according as, to the degree that. II 387. Shelley, who 
believed that the "one Spirit " is impersonal, natiu-aUy made the piure white light of heaven 
the highest physical expression of it. Cf. the lines by Wordsworth, referred to in the note 
on 1. 381, in which the "mind of man " is made the climax. U 394. love and life: life seems 
to mean here the lower side of life, against which love, the highest spiritual principle, contends. 
If 395. the dead live there: in the young heart, by their uplifting influence. It is not clear 
whether the influence is exerted directly by them as a portion of nature (cf. U. 373-76) or is 
the result of what they did, thought, and wrote while they had individual existence; 11. 407, 
408 make it probable that the latter is meant. In either case the poet now afiirms an immor- 
tality of influence in the world of men, as he previously did in the world of nature. Cf. 
"George EUot's" lines: 

O may I join the choir invisible 

Of those immortal dead who live again 

In lives made better by their presence : live 

In pulses stirred to generosity, 

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 

For miserable aims that end with self. 

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, 

And with their mild persistence urge man's search 

To vaster issues. 

II399. Chatterton: Thomas Chatterton committed suicide in his eighteenth year (1770); 
his poems, although variously appraised, at least showed wonderful promise. K401. Sid- 
ney: Sir Philip Sidney, poet, courtier, and soldier, was fatally wounded on the field of battle, 
in 1586, at the age of thirty-two; his chief poems are love sonnets. II403. a spirit without 
spot: the phrase, sans peur ei sans reproche, has often been applied to Sidney. TJ 404. Lwcan, 
by his death approved: the Roman poet, author of the Pharsalia, an epic on the war between 
Caesar and Pompey, died in 65 A. D., at the age of twenty-six; he was impUcated in a plot 
against the emperor Nero, and (it is alleged) turned informer against his own mother, hoping 
to save himself, but, being condemned to death, died bravely by opening his veins before the 
time. 

(222) 410. That the ascription of personal, conscious life after death to these poets, 
and their welcome to Keats, are only a poetic fiction — a vivid way of saying that Keats deserves 
to rank with them — and not Shelley's real belief, appears not only from the previous refer- 
ences to the nature of Keats's immortality, but also from Shelley's essay, "On a Future 
State," written about 1815. 1(415-23. The sense seems to be this: "FooUsh wretch, you 
will not mourn for Keats if you realize how superior his state is to yours; try to realize it 
by flying in imagination throughout the universe, which he pervades in reality; then, when 
you shrink back to your little pin-point of individual existence, you are more likely to be 
heavy-hearted for yourself than for him." II439. a slope of green access: "John Keats 
.... was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants, .... under the 
pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the massy walls and towers, now moldering 
and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space 
among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with 
death to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place." — Shelley, in the preface. 



NOTES 551 

(223) 460. Cf. "the one Spirit's" (1. 381), and "all new successions" (1. 383). II461. 
shadows. In conformity with his Platonic philosophy Shelley speaks of the most beautiful 
and brightest things on earth as only shadows compared with the Eternal Beauty of which 
they are imperfect manifestations (cf. 1. 468); in addition to this contrast between "light" 
and "shadows," there is one between "forever" and "fly," i. e., earthly things have the unre- 
ality and transitoriness of shadows, but heavenly things are real and eternal. K464. The 
action of death is thought of as a blessing, because it releases us from individual human hfe, 
with its purblind and perverted vision (see 1. 462), and admits us to "the white radiance of 
Eternity." II465. that which thou dost seek: not Keats, but Absolute Beauty (cf. "glory," 

I. 468, and "the fire for which all thirst," 1. 485). 11472-74- This note of despondency, 
of the loss of that youthful freshness and hope in which all things had been glorified, occurs 
often in Shelley's later poems, occasioned in part by the feverish haste of living which made 
him feel prematurely old and in part by the world's rejection of or indifference to his ideals; 
cf. "Stanzas Written in Dejection near Naples" (1818), "Ode to the West Wind" (1819), 

II. 54-58, and "A Lament" (1821): 

Oh, world ! oh, Ufe ! oh, time ! 
On whose last steps I climb. 

Trembling at that where I had stood before, 
When will return the glory of your prime ? 
No more — O, never more ! 

Out of the day and night 
A joy has taken flight; 

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar 
Move my faint heart with grief, but with deUght 
No more — O, never more ! 

In expression and in the fact stated, the lines in "Adonais" are like Wordsworth's in "Ode: 
Intimations of Immortality," 11. 1-18, 176-79, but the reason for the fact is different. 
1(480,481. Cf. 11. 338, 339, and Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality, "11. 58-61. 

(224) 484. Cf. 11. 384, 385. a.f= according as, to the degree that. 

(224) The World's Great Age Begins Anew. The final chorus in "Hellas," a 
lyrical drama upon the Greeks' war for independence from the Turks, which was then raging. 
Shelley believed, or hoped, that the revival among the Greeks of the free spirit of their ances- 
tors was a prophecy of the coming Golden Age of freedom and love. H i. The world's great 
age. "From these unequal motions of the planets, mathematicians have called that the 
'great year' in which the sun, moon, and five wandering stars, having finished their revolu- 
tions, are found in their original situation." — Cicero, De natura deonim, II. xx. Shelley 
thinks of human history as completing a similar great cycle and beginning afresh with a new 
and greater Golden Age. K4. weeds=g&ra\&aX.s. H 5. faiths and empires: equivalent, in 
Shelley's dialect, to superstitions and tyrannies. H 9. Peneus: the principal river of Thes- 
saly, flowing through the beautiful vale of Tempe. K 10. The general direction of the Peneus 
is northeastward. H 12. Cyclads: the Cyclades, islands in the Aegean Sea. H 13. Argo: 
the ship of Jason, in which, according to the fable, he brought back the golden fleece from 
Colchis. If 15. Orpheus: Orpheus, son of Apollo and the muse Calliope, descended into 
Hades to recover his dead wife, Eurydice, and so charmed Pluto with the music of his lyre 
that he was allowed to lead Eurydice to the upper world on condition that he would not look 
back at her; failing to observe the condition and losing her, he wandered disconsolate through 
Thrace, and was dismembered by the Thracian Bacchantes, whose love he had spurned, and 
his body was cast into the river Hebrus. H 18. Calypso: a nymph, on Trhose isle Ulysses 
was cast; she loved him, and offered to make him immortal, but he returned to his kingdom 
and his wife. H 19-22. Thus far the poet has been recalling the glories of the early age of 
Greece — her natural beauty, the achievements of her mythical heroes, the power and pathos 
of her art, the wisdom and honor of her great men, and prophesying that the new Golden Age 
will equal or excel the old. But when he comes to the Trojan War, and the sorrows of the 



552 ENGLISH POEMS 



house of Laius (king of Thebes, whose son Oedipus unwittingly slew him and married his 
own mother), he expresses the hope that in the new age these events may have no parallels; 
death will still desolate the earth, but the case need not be made worse by war and violence. 

(225) 23. a subtler Sphinx: a monster, the Sphinx, half woman and half Hon, afflicted 
Thebes; she proposed a riddle to travelers who approached her rock by the highway, and 
if they could not solve it she killed them; Oedipus guessed her riddle, and she slew herself. 
By "subtler," Shelley means that the modern problems of life and thought are more difficult 
than those of the early ages. H 31-36. "Saturn and Love were among the deities of a real 
or imaginary state of innocence and happiness. 'All those who fell,' or the gods of Greece, 
Asia, and Egypt; the 'One who rose,' or Jesus Christ, at whose appearance the idols of the 
pagan world were amerced of their worship; and the 'many unsubdued,' or the monstrous 
objects of the idolatry of China, India, the Antarctic islands, and the native tribes of America." 
— Shelley. ^ 37. O cease: on the supposition that the history of the world will repeat itself, 
a new Iron Age of suffering and wrong will succeed the new Golden Age, and the poet does 
not wish to continue his prophecy to that period. 

(226) To Night. Hi. over: in the Harvard manuscript, " o'er." 

Contemporary Criticism 

We have examined Mr. Shelley's system shghtly, but, we hope, dispassionately; there 
will be those who will say that we have done so coldly. He has indeed, to the best of his 
abiHty, wounded us in the tenderest part. As far as in him lay, he has loosened the hold of 
our protecting laws, and sapped the principles of our venerable pohty; he has invaded the 
purity and chilled the unsuspecting ardor of ouj- fireside intimacies; he has slandered, ridi- 
culed, and blasphemed our holy rehgion; yet these are all too sacred objects to be defended 
bitterly or unfairly. We have learned, too, though not in Mr. Shelley's school, to discrimi- 
nate between a man and his opinions, and while we show no mercy to the sin, we can regard 
the sinner with allowance and pity. It is in this spirit that we conclude with a few lines which 
may serve for a warning to others, and for reproof, admonition, and even, if he so pleases, 
of encouragement to himself. We have already said what we think of his powers as a poet, 
and doubtless, with those powers, he might have risen to respectability in any honorable 
path which he had chosen to pursue, if to his talents he had added industry, subordination, 
and good principles. But of Mr. Shelley much may be said with truth which we not long 
since said of his friend and leader Mr. Himt: he has not, indeed, aU that is odious and con- 
temptible in the character of that person; so far as we have seen he has never exhibited the 
bustUng vulgarity, the ludicrous affectation, the factious flippancy, or the selfish heartless- 
ness, which it is hard for our feelings to treat with the mere contempt they merit. Like him, 
however, Mr. Shelley is a very vain man; and, hke most very vain men, he is but half-instructed 
in knowledge, and less than half-disci phned in his reasoning powers; his vanity, wanting 
the control of the faith which he derides, has been his ruin; it has made him too impatient 
of applause and distinction to earn them in the fair course of labor; like a speculator in trade, 
he would be rich without capital and without delay, and, as might have been anticipated, 
his speculations have ended only in disappointments. — The Quarterly Review, April, 1819, 
on "The Revolt of Islam." 

There is not so much to find fault with in the mere silence of critics; but we do not 
hesitate to say, with all due respect for the general character of that journal, that Mr. Shel- 
ley has been infamously and stupidly treated in the Quarterly Review. His reviewer there, 
whoever he is, does not show himself a man of such lofty principles as to entitle him to ride the 
high horse in company with the author of the "Revolt of Islam." And when one compares 
the vis inertiae of his motionless prose with the "eagle-winged raptures" of Mr. Shelley's 
poetry, one does not think indeed of Satan reproving Sin, but one does think, we will say it 
in plain words and without a figure, of a dimce rating a man of genius. If that critic does 
not know that Mr. Shelley is a poet, almost in the very highest sense of that mysterious word, 



NOTES 553 

then we appeal to all those whom we have enabled to judge for themselves if lie be not unlit 

to speak of poetry before the people of England It is not in the power of all the critics 

alive to blind one true lover of poetry to the splendor of Mr. Shelley's genius; and the reader 
who, from mere curiosity, should turn to the "Revolt of Islam" to see what sort of trash it 
was that so moved the wrath and the spleen and the scorn of the reviewer, would soon feel 
that to understand the greatness of the poet, and the Uttleness of his traducer, nothing more 
was necessary than to recite to his dehghted sense any six successive stanzas of that poem, 
so full of music, imagination, intellect, and passion. — Blackwood's Magazine. November, iSig. 

We have already given some of our columns to this writer's merits, and we will not 
now repeat oirr convictions of his incurable absurdity. On the last occasion of our alluding 
to him, we were compelled to notice his horrid licentiousness and profaneness, his fearful 
offences to aU the maxims that honorable minds are in the habit of respecting, and his plain 
defiance of Christianity. On tlie present occasion we are not met by so continued and regu- 
lar a determination of insult, though there are atrocities to be found in the poem quite enough 
to make us caution our readers against its pages. "Adonais" is an elegy after the manner 
of Moschus, on a fooUsh young man, who, after writing some volumes of very weak, and, in 
the greater part, of very indecent, poetry, died some time since of a consumption, the break- 
ing down of an infirm constitution having, in aU probabiUty, been accelerated by the dis- 
carding his neck-cloth, a practice of the Cockney poets, who look upon it as essential to genius, 
inasmuch as neither Michael Angelo, Raphael, or Tasso are supposed to have worn those 
anti-spiritual incumbrances. In short, as the vigor of Samson lay in his hair, the secret 
of talent in these persons Kes in the neck; and what aspirations can be expected from a mind 
enveloped in mushn? Keats caught cold in training for a genius, and, after a Hngering 
illness, died, to the great loss of the Independents of South America, whom he had intended 
to visit with an English epic poem, for the purpose of exciting them to Mberty. But death, 
even the death of the radically presumptuous profligate, is a serious thing; and as we beheve 
that Keats was made presumptuous chiefly by the treacherous puffing of his Cockney fellow- 
gossips, and profligate in his poems merely to make them saleable, we regret that he did not 
live long enough to acquire common-sense, and abjure the pestilent and perfidious gang 
who betrayed his weakness to the grave and are now panegyrising his memory into contempt. 
For what is the praise of Cockneys but disgrace, or what honorable inscription can be placed 
over the dead by the hands of notorious Ubellers, exiled adulterers, and avowed atheists ? . . . . 

We have some idea that this fragment of character ["Adonais," 11. 280-83] is intended 
for Mr. Shelley himself. It closes with a passage of memorable and ferocious blasphemy: 

He with a sudden hand 
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, 
Which was hke Cain's or Christ's! ! ! 

What can be said to the wretched person capable of this daring profanation? The name 
of the first murderer — the accurst of God — brought into the same aspect image with that of 
the Saviour of the World! We are scarcely satisfied that even to quote such passages may 
not be criminal. The subject is too repulsive for us to proceed even in expressing our disgust 
for the general folly that makes the poem as miserable in point of authorsliip as in point of 
principle. We know that among a certain class this outrage and this inanity meet with 
some attempt at palliation, under the idea that frenzy holds the pen. That any man who 
insults the common order of society, and denies the being of God, is essentially mad we 
never doubted. But for the madness that retains enough of rationaUty to be wilfully mis- 
chievous we can have no more lenity than for the appetites of a wild beast. The poetry of 
the work is contemptible — a mere collection of bloated words heaped on each other without 
order, harmony, or meaning; the refuse of a school-boy's commonplace-book, full of the 
vulgarisms of pastoral poetry, yeUow gems and blue stars, bright Phoebus and rosy-fingered 
Aurora; and of this stuff is Keats's wretched elegy compOed. — The Literary Gazette, Decem- 
ber 8, 182 1. 



554 ENGLISH POEMS 



LEIGH HUNT 
(227) The Story of Rimini. Canto III. 361-464. The story is that of Paola and 
Francesca, and the summer-house in the garden is the place where they first confessed their 
love to each other. The poem was published just as Keats was beginning to write, and its 
style, verse, and way of describing nature influenced his early poetry. 

(229) 79. Alcina or Morgana: evil fays, the embodiments of sensual delights, who 
appear in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and other romances on medieval subjects. 

JOHN KEATS 

(230) The following are some of Keats's utterances about poetry and human Ufe, and 
his attitude toward both: 

"We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us, and, if we do not agree, seems 
to put its hand into its breeches' pocket. Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing 
which enters into one's soul, and does not startle or amaze it with itself but with its object. 
How beautiful are the retired flowers ! how would they lose their beauty were they to throng 
into the highway, crying out, 'Admire me, I am a violet ! Dote upon me, I am a primrose !' " 
— Letter to Reynolds, February 3, 1818. "In poetry I have a few axioms, and you will 
see how far I am from their centre, ist. I think poetry should surprise by a fine excess, 
and not by singularity; it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, 
and appear almost a remembrance. 2nd. Its touches of beauty should never be half-way, 
thereby making the reader breathless instead of content. The rise, the progress, the setting 
of imagery should, Uke the sun, come natural to him, shine over him, and set soberly, although 

in magnificence, leaving him in the luxury of twilight Another axiom — that if poetry 

comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all." — Letter to Taylor, 
February 27, 1818. "As to the poetical character itself (I mean that sort of which, if I am 
anything, I am a member; that sort distinguished from the Wordsworthian, or egotistical 
sublime, which is a thing per se and stands alone), it is not itself — it has no self — it is every- 
thing and nothing — it has no character — it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it 
foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated. It has as much delight in conceiving 
an lago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philosopher deMghts the chameleon poet. 
It does no harm from its relish of the dark side of things, any more than from its taste for 
the bright one, because they both end in speculation. A poet is the most unpoetical of any- 
thing in existence, because he has no identity — he is continually in for, and filling, some other 

body In the second place, I will speak of my views, and of the life I purpose to myself. 

I am ambitious of doing the world some good: if I should be spared, that may be the work 
of maturer years— in the interval I will assay to reach to as high a summit in poetry as the 
nerve bestowed upon me will suffer. The faint conceptions I have of poems to come bring 
the blood frequently into my forehead. AU I hope is that I may not lose all interest in human 
affairs — that the solitary indifference I feel for applause, even from the finest spirits, will 
not blunt any acuteness of vision I may have. I do not think it will. I feel assured I should 
write from the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if my night's labors 
should be burnt every morning and no eye ever shine upon them. But even now I am per- 
haps not speaking from myself, but from some character in whose soul I now live." — Letter 
to Woodhouse, October 27, 1818. "The imagination may be compared to Adam's dream, — 
he awoke and found it truth. I am more zealous in this affair, because I have never yet 
been able to perceive how anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning — and 
yet it must be. Can it be that even the greatest philosopher ever arrived at his goal without 
putting aside numerous objections? However it may be, O for a life of sensations rather 
than of thoughts."— Letter to Bailey, November 22, 1817. "I know nothing— I have read 
nothing — and I mean to follow Solomon's directions, 'Get learning — get understanding.' I 
find earUer days are gone by — I find that I can have no enjoyment in the world but con- 
tinual drinking of knowledge. I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some 



NOTES 555 

good to the world. Some do it with their society— some with their wit — some with their 
benevolence — some with a sort of power of conferring pleasure and good humor on all they 
meet — and in a thousand ways, all dutiful to the command of great Nature — there is but one 
way for me. The road lies through application, study, and thought. I will pursue if, and 
for that end purpose retiring for some years." — Letter to Taylor, April 24, 1818. "I have 
written to George for some books — shall learn Greek, and very likely Italian — and in other 
ways prepare myself to ask Hazlitt, in about a year's time, the best metaphysical road I can 
take. For although I take poetry to be chief, yet there is something else wanting to one 
who passes his life among books and thoughts on books — I long to feast upon old Homer 
as we have upon Shakspeare, and as I have lately upon Milton. If you understood Greek, 
and would read me passages now and then, explaining their meaning, 'twould be, from 
its mistiness, perhaps, a greater luxury than reading the thing one's self. I shall be happy 
when I can do the same for you." — Letter to Reynolds, April 27, 1818. "Were I to study 
physic or rather medicine again, I feel it would not make the least difference in my poetry; 
when the mind is in its infancy a bias is in reality a bias, but when we have acquired more 
strength a bias becomes no bias. Every department of knowledge we see excellent and cal- 
culated towards a great whole An extensive knowledge is needful to thinking 

people — it takes away the heat and fever; and helps, by widening speculation, to ease the 

'burden of the mystery,' a thing which I begin to understand a little The difference 

of high sensations with and without knowledge appears to me this: in the latter case we 
are faUing continually ten thousand fathoms deep and being blown up again, without 
wings, and with all the horror of a bare-shouldered creature — in the former case our 
shoulders are fledged, and we go through the same air and space without fear I com- 
pare human Kfe to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, 
the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me. The first we step into we call the Infant, 

or Thoughtless, Chamber, in which we remain as long as we do not think We no 

sooner get into the second chamber, which I shall call the Chamber of Maiden Thought, 
than we become intoxicated with the hght and the atmosphere, we see nothing but pleasant 
wonders, and think of delaying there forever in delight. However, among the effects this 
breathing is father of is that tremendous one of sharpening one's vision into the heart and 
nature of man — of convincing one's nerves that the world is fuU of misery and heartbreak, 
pain, sickness, and oppression — whereby this chamber of Maiden Thought becomes gradually 
darkened, and at the same time, on all sides of it, many doors are set open — but all dark — 
all leading to dark passages. We see not the balance of good and evil; we are in a mist, 
■we are now in that state, we feel the 'burden of the mystery.' To this point was Wordsworth 
come, as far as I can conceive, when he wrote 'Tintern Abbey,' and it seems to me that his 
genius is explorative of those dark passages. Now if we live, and go on thinking, we too shall 
explore them. He is a genius and superior to us in so far as he can, more than we, make dis- 
coveries and shed a Ught in them." — Letter to Reynolds, May 3, 1818. 

(230) On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. "We were put in possession of 
the Homer of Chapman, and to work we went, turning to some of the 'famousest' passages. 
.... One scene I could not fail to introduce to him — the shipwreck of Ulysses, in the fifth 
book of the 'Odysseis,' and I had the reward of one of his dehghted stares, upon reading 
the following lines: 

Then forth he came, his both knees falt'ring, both 
His strong hands hanging down, and all with froth 
His cheeks and nostrils flowing, voice and breath 
Spent to all use, and down he sank to death. 
The sea had soaked his heart through; all his veins 
His toils had racked t' a labouring woman's pains. 
Dead-weary was he. 

.... It was in the teeming wonderment of this his first introduction that, when I came down 
to breakfast the next morning, I found upon my table a letter with no other enclosure than 



556 ENGLISH POEMS 



his famous sonnet, 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer.' We had parted .... at 
day-spring, yet he contrived that I should receive the poem from a distance of, may be, two 
miles, by ten o'clock." — "Recollections of John Keats," by Charles Covsrden Clarke, in The 
Geniletnan's Magazine, February, 1874. TJ 3. western islands: Keats's reading was limited 
for the most part to the poets of England, the westernmost country of Europe, as Greece is 
the easternmost. TI 4. in fealty: the figure is taken from the feudal system; Apollo is the 
emperorof the "realms of gold," and the poets are his vassals. ^6. deep-browed: an allusion 
to the overhanging brows and deep-set eyes of the famiUar bust of Homer; in the manuscript 
the first reading was "low-browed." US. Chapman. The translation of Homer by George 
Chapman, the Elizabethan dramatist and poet, came out during the years 1598-1616. Keats 
rightly characterized it in "loud and bold," as may be seen in the Unes quoted above by Clarke 
and in the following (from the Iliad), which he says Keats and he also read together that 
night — they describe Neptune going in anger to the aid of the Greeks: 

The woods and all the great hills near trembled beneath the weight 

Of his immortal moving feet. Three steps he only took. 

Before he far-off Aegas reacht, but, with the fourth, it shook 

With his drad entry. In the depth of those seas he did hold 

His bright and glorious palace, built of never-rusting gold; 

And there arrived, he put in coach his brazen-footed steeds, 

AH golden-maned, and pac't with wings; and all in golden weeds 

He clothed himself. 

II II. Cortez: it was Balboa, not Cortez, who discovered the Pacific Ocean, in 1513. The 
account given by Robertson in his History of America, which Clarke says Keats had read at 
school, is as follows: "At length the Indians assured them that from the top of the next 
mountain they should discover the ocean which was the object of their wishes. When, with 
infinite toil, they had chmbed up the greater part of that steep ascent, Balboa commanded 
his men to halt, and advanced alone to the summit, that he might be the first who should 
enjoy a spectacle which he had so long desired. As soon as he beheld the South Sea stretch- 
ing in endless prospect below him, he fell on his knees, and, lifting up his hands to heaven, 
returned thanks to God, Who had conducted him to a discovery so beneficial to his country 
and so honorable to himself. His followers, observing his transports of joy, rushed forward 
to join in his wonder, exultation, and gratitude." 

(230) I Stood Tiptoe upon a Little Hill. Lines 1-106. "The poem .... was 
suggested to him by a delightful summer day, as he stood beside the gate that leads from the 
Battery on Hampstead Heath into afield by Caen Wood." — Leigh Hunt, in Lord Byron and 
Some of his Contemporaries (1S28). Keats's style and verse in this poem, as in "Endymion," 
were evidently influenced by the poetry of Leigh Hunt (see p. 227) and of William Browne, 
whose Britannia^s Pastorals (1613-16) furnished a motto for one section of the volume which 
included "I Stood Tiptoe upon a Little'HiU." A passage from the pastorals (Book II, 
Song 1, 11. 782-96) will show how much nearer Keats was to Browne than to Dryden or Pope 
in his way of writing the pentameter couplet: 

First thick clouds rose from all the liquid plains; 
Then mists from marishes, and grounds whose veins 
Were conduit-pipes to many a crystal spring; 
From standing pools and fens were following 
Unhealthy fogs; each river, every rill _ 
Sent up their vapours to attend her will. 
These pitchy curtains drew 'twixt earth and heaven. 
And as Night's chariot tlurough the air was driven. 
Clamour grew dumb, unheard was shepherd's song, 
And silence girt the woods; no warbHng tongue 
Talked to the Echo; satyrs broke their dance. 
And all the upper world lay in a trance. 
Only the curled streams soft chidings kept; 
And httle gales that from the green leaf swept 
Dry summer's dust, in fearful whisp'rings stirred, 
As loath to waken any singing bird. 



NOTES 557 

(232) 67. saUows=willovis. 

(233) Endymion. proem. "Endymion," Book I, 1-62. 

(234) 39, 40. "Endymion" was begun in Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight, whence the poet 
wrote to Reynolds, under date of April 18, 1817, "I shall forthwith begin my 'Endymion,' 
which I hope I shall have got some way with by the time you come, when we will read our 
verses in a delightful place I have set my heart upon, near the castle." H 58, 59. "In 'Endy- 
mion' I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the 
soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped 
a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure; for I 
would sooner fail than not be among the greatest." — Letter to Hessey, October 9, 1818. 

(234) HYMN TO PAN. "Endymion," Book I. 232-306. 

(23s) 12. Syrinx: Syrinx fled from the love of Pan to the water nymphs, who changed 
her into a clump of reeds by the river; when Pan embraced them and sighed over them, the 
reeds gave forth a sad melody, and the god made of them Pan's pipes, or the syrinx. H 16. 
turtles = turtle-doves . 

(236) 75. Mount Lycean: Mount Lyceum was in Arcadia, the favorite residence of 
Pan. 

(236) When I Have Fears that I May Cease to Be. Cf. "Sleep and Poetry," 

11. 96-98: 

O for ten years, that I may overwhelm 
Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed 
That my own soul has to itself decreed. 

K3. in characfry^in characters, in letters. 

(237) 9. fair creature: not Fanny Brawne, whom Keats had not met at this time. 
I13, 14. Cf. Shakspere's Sonnets, cvii. i, 2: 

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul 
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come. 

(237) On Sitting down to Read "King Lear" Once Again. 116. damnation: 
in the version written by Keats in a letter to George and Thomas Keats, January 23, 1818, 
the reading is "hell torment." If 9. clouds of Albion: the story of Lear and his three daugh- 
ters has come down to us from the cloudland of early British legend. H 12-14. Keats was 
realizing more and more that he needed to nourish his poetical powers by studying the works 
of the great poets before him; cf. a statement, which precedes the sonnet, in the letter quoted 
above: "I think a Uttle change has taken place in my intellect lately — I cannot bear to be 
uninterested or unemployed, I, who for so long a time have been addicted to passiveness. 
Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions than a very gradual ripening of the 
intellectual powers. As an instance of this — observe — I sat down yesterday to read King 
Lear once again: the thing appeared to demand the prologue of a sonnet; I wrote it, and 
began to read." 

(237) Mother of Hermes, and Still Youthful Maia. In a letter to Reynolds, 
May 3, 1818, Keats says that he wrote these hues on May Day. K i. Maia was the mother 
of Hermes. If 3. Baiae: this seaside resort, near Naples, was in Magna Graecia, or that 
portion of southern Italy colonized by Greeks, who of course brought with them the worship 
of the Greek deities. If 5. Sicilian: Sicily was also a Greek colony. 

(238) Hyperion. Book I. 1-157. Saturn, the supreme god in the earUer classic 
mythology, was deposed by Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto; the Mnes describe his stupor imme- 
diately after his overthrow. If 30. Ixion^s wheel: Ixion, for boasting that Herfe loved him, 
was boimd to a revolving wheel in Tartarus. 

(240) 95- Hyperion: god of the sun. 
(242) Fancy. 

(244) 81. Ceres^ daughter: Proserpine, whom Pluto carried off to the lower world as 
his bride. 85. Rebels: Hebe, the goddess of youth, was cup-bearer to the gods. 



558 ENGLISH POEMS 



(244) Ode to a Nightingale. % 16. Hippocrette: a fountain on Mt. Helicon, sacred 
to the Muses, the waters of which were supposed to give poetic inspiration. (The fable 
was that the fountain gushed out where the hoof of Pegasus struck the ground; 1777705, horse, 
Kprjv-q, fountain.) 

(245) 26. The line was apparently suggested by the death of the poet's brother Tom, 
by consumption, a few months before. K 32. pards: leopards drew the car of Bacchus. 
II33. viewless=in-visih\e. % 51. /oy=inasmuch as. If 52. This was not merely a poetic 
fancy; cf. Keats's statement in a letter to Bailey, Jime 10, 1818: "Now I am never alone 
without rejoicing that there is such a thing as death — without placing my ultimate in the 
glory of dying for a great human purpose. Perhaps if my affairs were in a different state, I 
should not have written the above — you shall judge: I have two brothers; one is driven, 
by the 'burden of society,' to America; the other, with an exquisite love of life, is in a linger- 
ing state." 

(246) 62. There seems to be a contrast implied between the bird and a poet like Keats 
himself in an age too hungry for material good to care much for poetry. If 66. Ruth: cf . the 
second chapter of the Bible story of Ruth. HSo. do I wake or sleep? The sense is, "In 
coming back to the ordinary world have I awaked into real life; or were those moments of 
beauty and joy with the nightingale real existence, in leaving which I have sunk into spiritual 
sleep?" Cf. a somewhat similar thought in "Adonais," 11. 343-48. 

(246) Ode on a Grecian Urn. "There is some reason for thinking that the particular 
urn which inspired this beautiful poem is a somewhat weather-beaten work in marble still 
preserved in the garden of Holland House." — Buxton Forman. If 3. sylvan: cf. "leaf- 
fringed," 1. 5. 

(247) 13. sensual ear^eax of sense; the idea of moral grossness is absent. Tf 18-20. 
Cf. the "Ode on Melancholy," 11. 21-30. If 3i- Here begins a description of another group 
of figures, on the other, side of the lurn. ^35. The "little town" is not represented on the 
urn, but is fancied by the poet. If 41. attitude: the word refers to the poise of the whole urn. 
brede=hTa.id, embroidery, ornament. If 42. marble: see the note by Buxton Forman, quoted 
above. If 44. tease: the basis of the sense of the word here is its earlier meaning of carding 
or combing a tangled mass, as of flax or wool; the quiet beauty of the old Greek vase smoothes 
the tangles out of oxu- thoughts and gently leads us away from worries and frets into a calmer 
and higher mood, as the sense of eternity does. If 49, 50. "I am certain of nothing but of 
the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of imagination. What the imagination 
seizes as beauty must be truth — whether it existed before or not." — Keats, in a letter to Bailey, 
November 22, 1817. 

(248) To Autumn. "How beautiful the season is now — how fine the air — a temperate 
sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather — Diana skies — I never liked 
stubble-field so much as now — aye, better than the chilly green of the spring. Somehow, a 
stubble-field looks warm — in the same way that some pictures look warm. This struck me 
so much in my Sunday's walk that I composed upon it." — Keats, in a letter to Reynolds, 
September 22, 1819. ^28. sallows=wi\lows. If 30. &o«r«= boundary; sometimes used 
incorrectly for "region," and perhaps so here. If 32. garden-croft: a croft is a small piece of 
inclosed ground. 

(248) Ode ON Melancholy. Tf2. wolf's-bane: apoisonousplant, of the aconite family. 

(249) 6. beetle: the sacred beetle of Egypt was regarded as a symbol of the resurrection 
of the soul, and was placed in coffins, death-moth: a moth on whose back are markings 
that closely resemble the human skuU. If 7. Psyche: in Greek mythology the butterfly or 
the moth was often taken as a symbol of Psyche, the soul, because of its spirit-like emergence 
from the chrysalis of a worm; the death-moth would be the symbol of a soul made mournful 
by thoughts of death and its horrors. 

(249) The Eve of St. Agnes. St. Agnes was a Roman virgin who suffered mar- 
tyrdom at the beginning of the fourth century. On account of her name (cf. Latin "agnus," 



NOTES 559 

lamb) and her youth and innocence, the Iamb was associated with her in legend and picture. 
St. Agnes' Day is January 21; the eve is of course the night of January 20. "It was thought 
possible for a girl, on the eve of St. Agnes, to obtain, by divination, a knowledge of her future 

husband Lying down on her back that night, with her hands under her head, the 

anxious maiden was led to expect that her future spouse would appear in a dream and salute 
her with a kiss." — Chambers, Book of Days. H 8. without a death, i. e., without his having died. 
(250) 14-16. The chapel is the chapel of a castle, and in it are the sarcophagi of the 
ancestors of the noble family; each sarcophagus is enclosed in an iron raiUng, and surmounted 
by a stone effigy of the person buried within, hands clasped on breast, dumb orat'ries: an 
oratory is a place of prayer (Latin "orare," to speak, to pray); these oratories are called 
dumb because the effigies can pray only by their posture. U 18. mails: coats of mail. H 21. 
Flattered. Keats, who was an ardent reader of Shakspere, may have used the word as Shaks- 
pere sometimes does, in the sense of "to soothe, to please." Leigh Hunt gave a more elabo- 
rate explanation: "In this word 'flattered' is the whole theory of the secret of tears, which 

are the tributes, more or less worthy, of self-pity to self-love The poor old man was 

moved, by the sweet music, to think that so sweet a thing was intended for his comfort as 

well as for others He began to consider how much he had suffered — how much he 

had suffered wrongly and mysteriously Hence he found himself deserving of tears 

and self-pity, and he shed them, and felt soothed by his poor, old, loving self." — Hunt's 
London Journal, January 21, 1835. 1[ 37-41. Cf. "L'Allegro," 11. 119, 120, 127-30: 

Where throngs of knights and barons bold, 
In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold. 



And pomp, and feast, and revelry, 
With mcisk and antique pageantry; 
Such sights as youthful poets dream 
On summer eves by haunted stream. 



(251) 58. many a sweeping train: "skirts sweeping along the floor." — Keats, in a 
letter to Taylor, June 11, 1820. II 70. Hoodwinked^htinded (literally, having the eyes shut 
by a hood, as in the case of hunting-hawks). amort= dea.d. 

(252) 90. beldame=a.n old woman. ("Not a direct adoption of the Fr. belle dame, 
'fair lady,' but formed upon 'dam,' earUer 'dame,' in its Eng. sense of 'mother,' with 'bel'- 
employed to express relationship." — A New English Dictionary.) H 105. gossip=god- 
mother (O. E. "god," God, and "sib," relation, aUiance, the whole word meaning a God- 
relative, or sponsor at baptism). 1[ii6. secret sisterhood: nuns, who brought two lambs 
to St. Agnes' altar, and then spun and wove the wool. 

(253) 133. brook: a misuse of the word, apparently for the rhyme; but Buxton Forman 
suggests that Keats may have meant to write "baulk." 

(254) 168. legioned: as numerous as a legion. K 170, 171. Merlin, the enchanter of 
King Arthur's coiurt, while a furious storm was raging over the forest of Broceliande was 
magically imprisoned in a hawthorn- bush by his mistress, to whom he had revealed the spell, 
and was never seen again among men. (See Tennyson's "Merlin and Vivien.") Keats 
seems to have fused with this story the old notion that practicers of the black art sold them- 
selves to the Devil, who claimed their souls at death. 1172-75. Why Porphyro wanted 
the cates and the lute appears in a rejected stanza, which in the first draft came after stanza 6 : 

'T was said her future lord would there appear 
Offering as sacrifice — all in the dream — 
DeUcious food even to her Ups brought near: 
Viands and wine and fruit and sugared cream. 
To touch her palate with the fine extreme 
Of reUsh; then soft music heard; and then 
More pleasures followed in a dizzy stream 
Palpable almost; then to wake again 
Warm in the virgin morn, no weeping Magdalen. 



560 ENGLISH POEMS 



(25s) 218. gules— red color (a term in heraldry, derived probably from the red mouth 
— Latin "gula" — of the heraldic lion). 

(256) 241. Hunt {London Journal, January 21, 1835) curiously misinterpreted the 
line: "Clasped like a missal in a land of Pagans: that is to say, where Christian prayer- 
books must not be seen, and are, therefore, doubly cherished for the danger." But "clasped" 
clearly means "fastened by its clasps, shut": Keats first wrote, "Shut like a missal"; and 
the thought in the next two Unes makes this the natural interpretation. H 266. sooiher= 
more soothing, pleasing. 11268. argosy=a. large merchant- vessel, richly laden. H 269. 
Fez: the capital of Morocco. H 270. silken Samarcand: a city in Turkestan, famous for its 
cottons and silks. 

(257) 300. a painful change: of. 1. 311. 

(259) 358. arras: tapestry hung on the walls, with inwoven figures (from Arras, a 
city in France, where the tapestry was made). 

(259) Lamia. Part I. 1-170. In Greek mythology Lamia was first a beautiful woman 
loved by Zeus, whom Here turned into a man-eating monster; later she was thought of as 
an evil spirit, a vampire, who enticed men by her beauty and sucked their blood. (See 
Goethe's "Die Braut von Corinth.") In the Middle Ages witches were often called "Lamiae." 
Keats's poem is based upon a variation of the old legend, and combines the notions of a vam- 
pire and a snake-woman. In the first edition the following passage from Bmrton's Anatomy 
of Melancholy (162 1) (Part III, Sec. 2, Mem. i, subsec. i) was printed as a note at the end 
of the poem: " Philostratus, in his fourth book De vita Apollonii, hath a memorable instance 
in this kind, which I may not omit, of one Menippus Lycius, a young man twenty-five years 
of age, that, going between Cenchreas and Corinth, met such a phantasm in the habit of a 
fair gentlewoman, which, taking him by the hand, carried him home to her house in the suburbs 
of Corinth, and told him she was a Phoenician by birth, and if he would tarry with her 'he 
would hear her sing and play, and drink such wine as never any drank, and no man should 
molest him, but she, being fair and lovely, would live and die with him that was fair and 
lovely to behold.' The young man, a philosopher, otherwise staid and discreet, able to mod- 
erate his passions, though not this of love, tarried with her awhile to his great content, and at 
last married her, to whose wedding, amongst other guests, came ApoUonius, who, by some 
probable conjectures, found her out to be a serpent, a lamia, and that all her furniture was 
Uke Tantalus's gold described by Homer, no substance, but mere illusions. When she saw 
herself descried, she wept, and desired Apollonius to be silent, but he would not be moved, 
and thereupon she, plate, house, and all that was in it, vanished in an instant: 'many thou- 
sands took notice of this fact, for it was done in the midst of Greece.' " 

(261) 47. gordian shape, i. e., twisted into an intricate knot, like the famous gordian 
knot. 1149. ^arrf=leopard. 1^65. Sicilian air: the vale of Enna, in which Proserpine was 
gathering flowers when Pluto seized her and carried her off to Hades, is in Sicily, f 81. 
star of Lethe: Hermes was the sun-god during the hours when the sun was in the under-world. 

(263) 133. lythe Caducean charm: Hermes' rod, entwined with serpents, was called 
Caduceus. 

(264) La Belle Dame sans Merci. Cf. "The Eve of St. Agnes," 1. 292. "Among 
the pieces printed at the end of Chaucer's works and attributed to him, is a translation, 

under this title ["La Belle Dame," etc.], of a poem of the celebrated Alain Chartier 

It was the title which suggested to a friend the verses at the end of our present number." — 
Leigh Hunt, in The Indicator, May 10, 1820. Keats copied his poem into a journal-letter 
to George and Georgiana Keats, February-May, 1819; this earlier version has so many read- 
ings which to many lovers of Keats seem superior to the readings of the revised form that it 

is here printed entire: 

O what can ail thee, knight at arms. 

Alone and palely loitering ? 
The sedge is withered from the lake, 
And no birds sing ! 



NOTES 561 

what can ail thee, knight at arms, 

So haggard and so woe-begone ? 
The squirrel's granary is full, 
And the harvest's done. 

1 see a lily on thy brow. 

With anguish moist and fever dew; 
And on thy cheeks a fading rose 
Fast withereth too. — 

I met a lady in the meads, 

FuU beautiful, a faery's child". 
Her hair was long, her foot was Ught, 

And her eyes were wild. 

I made a garland for her head. 

And bracelets, too, and fragrant zone; 
She looked at me as she did love. 

And made sweet moan. 

I set her on my pacing steed. 

And nothing else saw, all day long; 
For sidelong would she bend, and sing 

A faery's song. 

She found me roots of reMsh sweet. 

And honey wild, and manna dew; 
And sure in language strange she said, 
"I love thee true." 

She took me to her elfin grot. 

And there she wept and sighed full sore; 
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes 

With kisses four. 

And there she lulled me asleep. 

And there I dreamed, ah woe betide ! 
The latest dream I ever dreamt. 

On the cold hillside. 

I saw pale kings, and princes too. 

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all, 
Who cried, "La belle dame sans merci 

Thee hath in thrall !" 

I saw their starved lips in the gloam 

With horrid warning gaped wide — 
And I awoke, and found me here, 

On the cold hill's side. 

And this is why I sojourn here. 

Alone and palely loitering; 
Though the sedge is withered from the lake. 

And no birds sing. 

(265) Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast as Thou Art. Lord Houghton (R. 
M. Milnes) says that after Keats had set sail for Italy, in September, 1820, he "landed once 
more in England, on the Dorsetshire coast, after a weary fortnight spent in beating about 
the Channel; the bright beauty of the day and the scene revived the poet's drooping heart, 
and the inspiration remained on him for some time even after his return to the ship. It 
was then that he composed that sonnet of solemn tenderness, 'Bright Star, Would I Were 
Stedfast as Thou Art,' and wrote it out in a copy of Shakespeare's poems he had given to 
Severn a few days before. I know of nothing written afterwards." — Life, Letters, and Lite- 
rary Remains of John Keats (1848). 

CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM 
Reviewers have been sometimes accused of not reading the works which they affected 
to criticize. On the present occasion we shall anticipate the author's complaint, and honestly 
confess that we have not read his work. Not that we have been wanting in our duty— far 



562 ENGLISH POEMS 



from it; indeed, we have made efforts almost as superhuman as the story itself appears to 
be, to get through it; but with the fullest stretch of our perseverance, we are forced to confess 
that we have not been able to struggle beyond the first of the four books of which this "Poetic 
Romance " consists. We should extremely lament this want of energy, or whatever it may 
be, on our part, were it not for one consolation — namely, that we are no better acquainted 
with the meaning of the book through which we have so painfully toiled than we are with 
that of the three which we have not looked into. It is not that Mr. Keats (if that be his real 
name, for we almost doubt that any man in his senses would put his real name to such a 
rhapsody), it is not, we say, that the author has not powers of language, rays of fancy, and 
gleams of genius — he has all these; but he is unhappily a disciple of the new school of what 
has been somewhere called Cockney poetry, which may be defined to consist of the most 
incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language 

Of the story we have been able to make out but little; it seems to be mythological, 
and probably relates to the loves of Diana and Endymion; but of this, as the scope of the 
work has altogether escaped us, we cannot speak with any degree of certainty, and must 
therefore content ourselves with giving some instances of its diction and versification — and 
here again we are perplexed and troubled. At first it appeared to us that Mr. Keats had been 
amusing himself and wearying his readers with an immeasurable game at bouts-rimes; but, if 
we recollect rightly, it is an indispensable condition at this play that the rhymes when filled 
up shall have a meaning; and our author, as we have already hinted, has no meaning. He seems 
to us to write a line at random, and then he follows, not the thought excited by this line, but 
that suggested by the rhyme vrith which it concludes. There is hardly a complete couplet 
enclosing a complete idea in the whole book. He wanders from one subject to another, 
from the association, not of the ideas, but of sounds, and the work is composed of hemistichs 
which, it is quite evident, have forced themselves upon the author by the mere force of the 
catchwords on which they turn. — The Quarterly Reviev), April (not published until Sep- 
tember), 1818, on "Endymion." (The article was long attributed to WiUiam GifFord, editor 
of the Review, but is now known to have been written by J. W. Croker, the leading contri- 
butor.) 

To witness the disease of any human understanding, however feeble, is distressing; 
but the spectacle of an able mind reduced to a state of insanity is of course ten times more 
aflBicting. It is with such sorrow as this that we have contemplated the case of Mr. John 
Keats. This young man appears to have received from natiu-e talents of an excellent, per- 
haps even of a superior, order— talents which, devoted to the purposes of any useful profes- 
sion, must have rendered him a respectable if not an eminent citizen. His friends, we under- 
stand, destined him to the career of medicine, and he was bound apprentice some years ago 
to a worthy apothecary in town. But all has been undone by a sudden attack of the malady 
to which we have alluded. Whether Mr. John had been sent home with a diuretic or com- 
posing draught to some patient far gone in the poetical mania, we have not heard. This 
much is certain, that he has caught the infection and that thoroughly. For some time we 
were in hopes that he might get oS with a violent fit or two; but of late the symptoms are 
terrible. The phrenzy of the "Poems" was bad enough in its way; but it did not alarm us 
half so seriously as the calm, settled, imperturbable, driveling idiocy of "Endymion." .... 

And now good-morrow to the "Muses' son of Promise"; as for "the feats he yet may 
do," as we do not pretend to say, Uke himself, "Muse of my native land, am I inspired," 
we shall adhere to the safe old rule of pau<:a verba. We venture to make one small prophecy, 
that his bookseller will not a second time venture £so upon anything he can write. It is a 
better and a wiser thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet; so back to the shop, 
Mr. John, back to "plasters, pills, and ointment boxes," etc. But, for Heaven's sake, young 
Sangrado, be a little more sparing of extenuatives and sporifics in your practice than you 
have been in your poetry. — Blackwood'' s Magazine, August, 1818, on "The Cockney School 
of Poetry." 



NOTES 563 

Endymion is totally unlike all these, and all other poems. As we said before, it is not a 
poem at all. It is an ecstatic dream of poetry — a flush — a fever — a burning light — an invol- 
untary outpouring of the spirit of poetry — that will not be controlled It is the wander- 
ings of the butterfly in the first hour of its birth, not as yet knowing one flower from another, 
but only that all are flowers. Its similitudes come crowding upon us from aU delightful 
things. It is the May-day of poetry It [the rhythm] combines more freedom, sweet- 
ness, and variety than are to be found in that of any other long poem written in the same 

measure, without any exception whatever Is it credible that the foregoing extracts 

are taken, almost at random, from a work in which a writer in the most popular — we will 
say deservedly the most popular — critical journal of the day has been unable to discover 
anything worthy to redeem it from mere contempt ? Those who have the most respect for 
the Quarterly Review will feel most pain at seeing its pages disgraced by such an article as 
that to which we allude. — The London Magazine, April, 1820. 

We had never happened to see either of these volumes till very lately, and have been 
exceedingly struck with the genius they display and the spirit of poetry which breathes through 
all their extravagance. That imitation of our old writers, and especially of oiur older drama- 
tists, to which we cannot help flattering ourselves that we have somewhat contributed, has 
brought on, as it were, a second spring in our poetry; and few of its blossoms are either more 
profuse of sweetness, or richer in promise, than this which is now before us. Mr. Keats, 
we understand, is still a very young man, and his whole works, indeed, bear evidence enough 
of the fact. They are full of extravagance and irregularity, rash attempts at originality, 
interminable wanderings, and excessive obscurity. They manifestly require, therefore, all 
the indulgence that can be claimed for a first attempt. But we think it no less plain that 
they deserve it, for they are flushed aU over with the rich lights of fancy, and so colored and 
Destrewn with the flowers of poesy that, even while perplexed and bewildered in their laby- 
rinths, it is impossible to resist the intoxication of their sweetness or to shut otir hearts to 

the enchantments they so lavishly present The following Unes from an ode to a 

nightingale are equally distinguished for harmony and high poetic feeUng. [Quotation of 
11. 15-28, 63-70.] .... We know nothing at once so truly fresh, genuine, and English, 
and at the same time so full of poetical feeKng and Greek elegance and simplicity, as this 
address to autumn. [Quotation of "To Autumn."] .... But the glory and charm of the 
poem ["The Eve of St. Agnes"] is in the description of the fair maiden's antique chamber, 
and of all that passes Ln that sweet and angel-guarded sanctuary, every part of which is 
touched with colors at once rich and deUcate, and the whole chastened and harmonized, in 
the midst of its gorgeous distinctness, by a pervading grace and purity that indicate not less 

clearly the exaltation than the refinement of the author's fancy Mr. Keats has imques- 

tionably a very beautiful imagination, a perfect ear for harmony, and a great familiarity with 
the finest diction of EngKsh poetry; but he must learn not to misuse or misapply these 
advantages, and neither to waste the good gifts of nature and study on intractable 
themes nor to luxuriate too recklessly on such as are more suitable. — The Edinburgh Review, 
August, 1820. (The article was written by Francis Jeffrey.) 

See also p. 555. 

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 

(265) Ah, What Avails the Sceptred Race. Rose Ayhner, daughter of Baron 
Aylmer, was Landor's friend and companion in his early years, in Wales; she went with 
her father to India, and died there in 1800. The poem was written after hearing of her 
death. Landor carried the memory of her to his grave, in his old age writing a poem about 
one of their days together, in which occur the following lines describing her treatment of 
a scratch he got in pulling roses for her: 

But then she saw a half-round bead. 

And cried, "Good gracious! how you bleed!" 



564 ENGLISH POEMS 



Gently she wiped it off, and bound 

With timorous touch that dreadful wound. 

To lift it from its nurse's knee 

I feared, and quite as much feared she, 

For might it not increase the pain, 

And make the wound biu-st out again ? 

She coaxed it to lie quiet there 

With a low tune I bent to hear; 

How close I bent I quite forget, 

I only know I hear it yet. 

(266) A FiESOLAN Idyl. Fiesole is a hamlet on a hill near Florence; Landor lived 
for some years in a viUa on the hiUside. 

(268) The Death of ARTEMnjoRA. In the first version, besides several minor differ- 
ences, these lines occurred at the end: 

With her that old boat incorruptible. 

Unwearied, undiverted in its course. 

Had plashed the water up the farther strand. 

TI II. Iris: as the personification of the rainbow, uniting heaven and earth, she was the 
messenger of the gods. 

(268) The Hamadryad. A hamadryad was a nymph who was bom and who died 
at the same time with the tree (usually an oak) of which she was the genius (ajta, together 
with; Spus, tree). The legend which Landor tells has been traced back to the fifth cen- 
tury B. c; Landor follows closely the outUne of the story as given by later Greek writers. 
Cf. Lowell's "Rhoecus." II2. 'Gnidos: the same as Cnidos, a city of Caria, Asia Minor, 
settled by Greeks, and a seat of the worship of Aphrodite. 1 7. Pandion: a legendary 
king of Athens. ^ 9. The olive was sacred to Athene, who had produced it for the benefit 
of men. ^ 12. her: Aphrodite. 

(269) 19. her: Proserpine. 

(270) 94. Cydonian bow: Cydonia was a city in the island of Crete, which was famous 
for its archers. 

(272) 134, 135. The reference is to Paris, son of Priam king of Troy, whose award 
of the prize of beauty to Aphrodite awoke the jealousy of Here and brought on the Trojan 
War. 1 166. Harkl on the left: thunder heard on the left was considered a favorable omen 
by the Greeks and Romans; cf. the Aeneid, II. 693. 

(274) 221. lentisk: a sweet shrub, oleander: a poisonous evergreen shrub, with frag- 
rant flowers. 

ALFRED TENNYSON 

(277) The Lady of Shalott. Palgrave says, in his edition of selected poems by 
Tennyson (1885), that the poem was suggested by an Italian novella upon the Donna di 
Scalotta, but the romance has not been identified. The poem departs considerably from 
the story as told by Malory (Morie Darthur, XVIII. Lx-xx) and again by Tennyson in "Lan- 
celot and Elaine." Canon Ainger, in his Tennyson for the Young (1891), says that Tennyson 
gave him this interpretation of the poem: "The newborn love for something, for some one, 
in the wide world from which she has been so long secluded, takes her out of the region of 
shadows into that of reaUties." Tennyson's son, in the Memoir (I. 116), says that the key 
to the poem is 11. 69-72. I3. wold^an open tract, a down (by change of meaning from 
O. E. "weald," forest). H 5. Camelot: the capital city of King Arthur, the legendary king of 
Britain. H 9. Shalott: a variant form, by way of the French, of "Astolat," the form in 
Malory and "Lancelot and Elaine." 

(278) 19-27. In 1832 thus: 

The little isle is all inrailed 
With a rose-fence, and overtrailed 
With roses; by the marge, unbailed, 



NOTES 565 



The shallop flitteth silken-sailed, 

Skimming down to Camelot. 
A pearl-garland winds her head; 
She leaneth on a velvet bed, 
Full royally apparelled, 

The lady of Shalott. 

(279) 80. yellow field: of. "barley-sheaves," 1. 74. 

(281) 126. In 1832, after this Una, came the following stanza: 

A cloud-white crown of pearl she dight, 
All raimented in snowy white 
That loosely flew (her zone in sight. 
Clasped with one blinding diamond bright), 

Her wide eyes fixed on Camelot : 
Though the squally eastwind keenly 
Blew, with folded arms serenely 
By the water stood the queenly 

Lady of Shalott. 

(282) 163-71. In 1832 thus: 

They crossed themselves, their stars they blest. 
Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire, and guest. 
There lay a parchment on her breast, 
That puzzled more than ail the rest 

The well-fed wits at Camelot : 
" The web was woven curiously, 
The charm is broken utterly. 
Draw near and fear not — this is I, 

The Lady of Shalott." 

(282) The Palace of Art. The version of 1832 was greatly changed in 1842, many 
stanzas being omitted, altered, or transposed, while fourteen of the present stanzas were 
added (stanzas 18-20, 26, 28, 35-41, 53); in 1851 further revisions, mostly slight, were made, 
and stanzas 49-51 were added. — 

Tennyson prefixed the following explanatory lines: 

I send you here a sort of allegory 

(For you will understand it) of a soul, 

A sinful soul possessed of many gifts, 

A spacious garden full of flowering weeds, 

A glorious devil, large in heart and brain, 

That did love Beauty only (Beauty seen 

In all varieties of mould and mind); 

And Knowledge for its beauty; or if Good, 

Good only for its beauty; seeing not 

That Beauty, Good, and Knowledge are three sisters 

That doat upon each other, friends to man, 

Living together under the same roof. 

And never can be sundered without tears. 

And he that shuts Love out, in turn shaU be 

Shut out from Love, and on her threshold Ke 

Howhng in outer darkness. Not for this 

Was common clay ta'en from the common earth. 

Moulded by God, and tempiered with the tears 

Of angels to the perfect shape of man. 

(283) 45-48. In 1832 thus: 

And round the terraces and round the walls, 

While day sank lower or rose higher. 
To see those rails with all their knobs and balls. 
Burn Uke a fringe of fire. 

(284) 53-56. In 1832 thus: 

Full of long sounding corridors it was, 
That over-vaulted grateful glooms. 
Roofed with thick plates of green and orange glass, 
Ending in stately rooms. 



566 ENGLISH POEMS 



1I6S-68. In 1832 thus: 

Some were all dark and red, a glimmering land 

Lit with a low round moon; 
Among brown rocks a man upon the sand 
Went weeping all alone. 

TI 79. prodigal in oil: covered thick with olive trees, from whose fruit oil is made. H 80. 
hoary to the wind: the under side of the oUve leaf is ash-colored. 

(285) 100. The legend is that an angel watched constantly over St. Cecilia, inven- 
tress of the organ. T[ 105. mythic Uther's: Uther, according to the myth, was the father of 
King Arthur; cf. "Morte D'Arthur," U. 256 fif. liii. Ausonian king: Nvmia Pompihus, 
one of the early legendary kings of Rome, who was reputed to receive counsel from the nymph 
Egeria; "Ausonia" was an old name for Campania, the district in which Rome is situated. 
11 113. engrailed= indenied. H 115. Indian Cama: Camadeo, the Hindu god of love, who 
floated through the air, in spring and summer, on the back of a lory, or parrot. 

(286) 117-20. Europa, while she was gathering flowers, was carried off by Zeus in 
the likeness of a bull, which swam with her on his back to Crete. In this stanza Tennyson 
followed Moschus, a Greek poet of the third century b. c: "Meanwhile Europa, riding on 
the back of the divine bull, with one hand clasped the beast's great horn, and with the other 
caught up the purple fold of her garment, lest it might trail and be wet in the hoar sea's infi- 
nite spray. And her deep robe was swelled out by the winds, like the sail of a ship, and 
lightly stiU did waft the maiden onward." — Idyls, II. 121-26, Lang's translation. % 121-24. 
Ganymede, a beautiful youth, was carried to Olympus by the eagle of Zeus, to serve as cup- 
bearer to the gods. H 133-40. In 1832 thus: 

There deep-haired Milton like an angel tall 

Stood Umned, Shakespeare bland and mild, 
Grim Dante pressed his lips, and from the wall 
The bald blind Homer smiled. 

H 137. Ionian father: Homer, who was supposed to be a native of Ionia, a region including 
the western part of Asia Minor, with adjacent islands, and settled by Ionian Greeks. 

(287) 163. Verulam: Francis Bacon, who was made Baron Verulam. K 164. first= 
foremost. H 171. Memnon: a statue near Thebes, Egypt; according to legend, when the 
first rays of the sun struck the statue it gave forth a musical sound. H 180. In 1832 there 
followed seven stanzas which were struck out in 1842; among them were these: 

With piles of flavorous fruits in basket-twine 

Of gold, upheaped, crushing down 
Musk-scented blooms — all taste — grape, gourd, or pine — 
In bunch, or single-grown — 

Our growths, and such as brooding Indian heats 

Make out of crimson blossoms deep. 
Ambrosial pulps and juices, sweets from sweets 
Sun-changed, when sea-winds sleep. 

(288) 186. In 1832, "She lit white streams of dazzling gas." 

(289) 219. Like Herod. "And upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat 
upon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying, 
'It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.' And immediately the angel of the Lord smote 
him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost." 
— Acts 12:21-23. II222, 223. The phrase seems to be taken almost without change from 
Arthur HaUam's Remains: "With Whom alone rest the abysmal secrets of personality." 
TI 227, 228. "This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy king- 
dom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. 
PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians." — Daniel 5:26- 
28. K 242. fretted=ea.ten into, here by worms (O. E. "fretan," to eat). 

(291) The Lotus-Eaters. Cf. the Odyssey, IX. 83-97: "But on the tenth day we 
set foot on the land of the lotus-eater^, who eat a flowery food. So we stepped ashore and 



NOTES 567 

drew water, and straightway my company took their midday meal by the swift ships. Now 
when we had tasted meat and drink I sent forth certain of my company to go and make search 
what manner of men they were who here live upon the earth by bread, and I chose out two 
of my feUows, and sent a third with them as herald. Then straightway they went and mixed 
with the men of the lotus-eaters, and so it was that the lotus-eaters devised not death for our 
fellows, but gave them of the lotus to taste. Now whosoever of them did eat the honey- 
sweet fruit of the lotus, had no more wish to bring tidings nor to come back, but there he 
chose to abide with the lotus-eating men, ever feeding on the lotus, and forgetful of his home- 
ward way." — Butcher and Lang's translation. % 1. he: Ulysses. 
(292) 23. galingale: a flowering marsh-plant. 

(292) You Ask Me Why, tho' III at Ease. Ha. this region: foggy England. 
K 4. purple seas: the blue seas of the South, reflecting unclouded skies. 

(293) 6. sober-suited: quietly dressed, in contrast to the more ostentatious, flaring 
kind of freedom in some other lands, as France. K 11, 12. Cf. Bacon's "Of Innovations"; 
"It were good, therefore, that men in their innovations would foUow the example of time 
itself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be per- 
ceived." Cf. also Gladstone's speech, "The Representation of the People," in 1866: " Changes 
that effect sudden and extensive transfer of power are attended by great temptations to human 

nature The genius of our country and the history of our institutions dictate and 

recommend ijradual progress." 

(293) Ulysses. "'Ulysses' was written soon after Arthur Hallam's death, and gave 
my feeling about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life, perhaps more 
simply than anything in 'In Memoriam.' " — Memoir, I. ig6. Professor J. W. Hales (in 
his Folia Litteraria, 1893) finds in the poem the modern "passion for knowledge, for the 
exploration of its limitless fields, for the annexation of new kingdoms of science and thought." 
The poem, in which Tennyson said there was "an echo of Dante," seems to have been sug- 
gested by a passage in Dante's La Divina Comtnedia ("Inferno," XXVI. 91-142), in which 
Ulysses speaks: "When I departed from Circe, .... neither fondness for my son, nor 
fiUal devotion to my old father, nor the due love which should have made Penelope joyful, 
could conquer within me the ardor which I had to become experienced in the world and in 
human vices and worth. But I set sail on the deep open sea with only one ship and with that 

little company by which I had not been deserted I and my companions were old and 

slow when we came to that narrow strait where Hercules set his landmarks as signs that 

man should go no farther 'O brothers,' I said, 'who through a hundred thousand 

perils have reached the West, to this so small vigil of our senses that remains be not willing 
to deny the experience, following the sun, of the world without people. Consider your origin. 
You were not made to live Uke beasts, but to follow virtue and knowledge.' .... And 
having turned the stern toward the morning, we made wings of the oars for our wild flight. 
.... Already the night saw all the stars of the other pole, and our pole so low that it rose 

not above the floor of the sea Out of the new land arose a whirlwind, and struck the 

forepart of the ship. Three times it whirled the ship about, with all the waters; the fourth 
time it raised the stern and made the stem go down, as pleased Another, until the sea was 
closed above us again." There is nothing of all this in the Odyssey. Tennyson, however, 
follows Homer and not Dante, in representing Ulysses as having returned to Ithaca, his rocky 
island kingdom, after ten years at the Trojan War and ten years more of wanderings. 1| 10. 
scudding drifts: flying, broken clouds, rainy Hyades: a translation of Virgil's "pluvias 
Hyadas" {Aeneid, I. 744); the Hyades were seven stars in the constellation Taurus, which 
were supposed to bring rain. Mustard compares Horace, Odes, IV. xiv. 20-23: 

Indomitas prope qualis undas 
Exercet Auster, Pleiadum choro 
Scjndente nubes, impiger hostium 
Vexare turmas. 



568 ENGLISH POEMS 



"Almost as the South Wind drives the untamed waves, while the band of Pleiades rends the 
clouds, with untiring zeal to vex the squadrons of the foe." 

(294) 17. windy Troy: translated from Homer's'IAtov i^j/ejOLdeo-wav {Iliad, XII. 115 £f.). 
(295> 58, 59. Cf. the Odyssey, IV. 580: i^ri^ S' e^ofievoi ttoAitjv iiKa tvtttov epeT/xois, 

"and sitting in order they smote the gray sea with the oars." K60, 61. According to early 
Greek astronomy the stars sank into the ocean when they set; cf. the Odyssey, V. 275. H 63. 
Happy Isles: the Greeks thought that the Islands of the Blessed were in the Atlantic Ocean, 
somewhere off the coast of Africa. 

(295) MoRTE D'Arthur. The historical Arthur was a British king or general who, 
early in the sixth century, defeated the English invaders and thereby checked their conquest 
for half a century. Around this historical figure there began to gather legends which finally 
transformed him into a great king and surrounded him and his knights with the splendor 
of romance. Tennyson's poem is based upon a late compilation of these legends, Malory's 
Morte Darihur (1485), from which the following passages are taken: "And thus they 
fought all the long day, and never stinted till the noble knights were laid to the cold earth; 
and ever they fought still till it was near night, and by that time was there an hundred thou- 
sand laid dead upon the down. Then was Arthur wood wroth out of measure, when he saw 
his people so slain from him. Then the king looked about him, and then was he ware, of 
all his host and of aU his good knights, were left no more aUve but two knights; that one 
was Sir Lucan the butler, and his brother Sir Bedivere, and they were full sore wounded. 
Jesu mercy, said the king, where are all my worthy knights become ? Alas that ever I should 
see this doleful day, for now, said Arthur, I am come to mine end. But would to God that I 
wist where were that traitor Sir Mordred, that hath caused all this mischief. Then was King 

Arthur ware where Sir Mordred leaned upon his sword among a great heap of dead men 

Then the king gat his spear in both his hands, and ran toward Sir Mordred, crying: Traitor, 
now is thy death-day come. And when Sir Mordred heard Sir Arthur, he ran until him 
with his sword drawn in his hand. And there King Arthur smote Sir Mordred under the 
shield, with a foin of his spear, throughout the body, more than a fathom. And when Sir 
Mordred felt that he had his death wound he thrust himself with the might that he had up to 
the bur of King Arthur's spear. And right so he smote his father Arthur, with his sword 
holden in both his hands, on the side of the head, that the sword pierced the helmet and 
the brain-pan, and therewithal Sir Mordred fell stark dead to the earth; and the noble Arthur 
fell in a swoon to the earth, and there he swooned ofttimes. And Sir Lucan the butler and 
Sir Bedivere ofttimes heaved him up. And so weakly they led him betwixt them both, to 

a little chapel not far from the seaside Then Sir Bedivere wept for the death of his 

brother. Leave this mourning and weeping, said the king, for all this will not avail me, for 
wit thou well an I might hve myself, the death of Sir Lucan would grieve me evermore; but 
my time hieth fast, said the king. Therefore, said Arthur unto Sir Bedivere, take thou Excali- 
birr, my good sword, and go with it to yonder water side, and when thou comest there I charge 
thee throw my sword in that water, and come again and tell me what thou there seest. My 
lord, said Bedivere, your commandment shall be done, and lightly bring you word again. 
So Sir Bedivere departed, and by the way he beheld that noble sword, that the pommel and 
the haft was all of precious stones; and then he said to himself: If I throw this rich sword 
in the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss. And then Sir Bedivere 
hid ExcaUbur under a tree. And so, as soon as he might, he came again unto the king, 
and said he had been at the water, and had thrown the sword in the water. What saw thou 
there? said the king. Sir, he said, I saw nothing but waves and winds. That is untruly 
said of thee, said the king, therefore go thou lightly again, and do my commandment; as 
thou art to me lief and dear, spare not, but throw it in. Then Sir Bedivere returned again, 
and took the sword in his hand; and then him thought sin and shame to throw away that 
noble sword, and so eft he hid the sword, and retiurned again, and told to the king that he 
had been at the water, and done his commandment. What saw thou there? said the king. 



NOTES 569 

Sir, he said, I saw nothing but the waters wappe and waves wanne. Ah, traitor untrue, 
said King Arthur, now h;ist thou betrayed me twice. Who would have weened that, thou 
that hast been to me so Uef and dear ? and thou art named a noble knight, and would betray 
me for the richness of the sword. But now go again Ughtly, for thy long tarrying putteth 
me in great jeopardy of my life, for I have taken cold. And but if thou do now as I bid 
thee, if ever I may see thee, I shall slay thee with mine own hands; for thou wouldst for 
my rich sword see me dead. Then Sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and 
lightly took it up, and went to the water side; and there he bound the girdle about the hilts, 
and then he threw the sword as far into the water as he might; and there came an arm and 
a hand above the water and met it, and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished, 
and then vanished away the hand with the sword in the water. So Sir Bedivere came again 
to the king, and told him what he saw. Alas, said the king, help me hence, for I dread me 
I have tarried over long. Then Sir Bedivere took the king upon his back, and so went with 
him to that water side. And when they were at the water side, even fast by the bank hoved 
a Uttle barge with many fair ladies in it, and among them aU was a queen, and all they had 
black hoods, and all they wept and shrieked when they saw King Arthur. Now put me 
into the barge, said the king. And so he did softly; and there received him three queens 
with great mourning; and so they set them down, and in one of their laps King Arthur laid 
his head. And then that queen said: Ah, dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from 
me ? alas, this woimd on your head hath caught over-much cold. And so then they rowed 
from the land, and Sir Bedivere beheld all those ladies go from him. Then Sir Bedivere 
cried: Ah my lord Arthur, what shall become of me, now ye go from me and leave me here 
alone among mine enemies ? Comfort thyself, said the king, and do as well as thou mayest, 
for in me is no trust for to trust in; for I wiU into the vale of AviKon to heal me of my grie- 
vous wound: and if thou hear never more of me, pray for my soul. But ever the queens 
and ladies wept and shrieked, that it was pity to hear. And as soon as Sir Bedivere had 
lost the sight of the barge, he wept and wailed, and so took the forest." — Book XXI, chaps, 
iv, v. K 3. table: the Round Table, at which, according to legend, the king and his knights 
sat at meals. "Also MerUn made the Round Table in tokening of roundness of the world, 
for by the Round Table is the world signified by right, for all the world, Christian and heathen, 
repair unto the Round Table." — Malory's Morte Darthur, Book XIV, chap, ii; cf. 1. 235. 
Tl 4. Lyonnesse: a fabulous region near Cornwall, said now to be deep under water. 

(296) 21. Camelot: Arthur's capital; see Tennyson's "Gareth and Lynette," U. 184 fif., 
for a description of it. K 22, 23. "Yet some men say in many parts of England that King 
Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say 
that he shall come again." — Malory, Morte Darthur, Book XXI, chap. vii. Merlin, to whom 
Tennyson attributes the prophecy, was the magician and wizard of Arthur's court. ^ 28-33. 
" So they rode till they came to a lake, the which was a fair water and broad, and in the midst 
of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white sarwte, that held a fair sword in that 
hand. Lo ! said MerUn, yonder is that sword that I spake of. With that they saw a damo- 
sel going upon the lake. What damosel is that ? said Arthur. That is the Lady of the Lake, 

said Merlin Sir Arthur, king, said the damosel, that sword is mine, and if ye will 

give me a gift when I ask it you, ye shall have it. By my faith, said Arthur, I will give you 
what gift ye will ask. Well! said the damosel, go ye into yonder barge, and row yourself 
to the sword, and take it and the scabbard with you, and I wiU ask my gift when I see the 
time. So Sir Arthur and Merlin aUt and tied their horses to two trees, and so they went 
into the ship, and when they came to the sword that the hand held. Sir Arthur took it up 
by the handles, and took it with him, and the arm and the hand went under the water." — 
Malory, Morte Darthur, Book I, chap. xxv. K37. middle mere: classicism for "middle 
of the mere"; Mustard compares the Aeneid, X. 451, "medium procedit in aequor." K 38. 
lightly =(imc^y, swiftly. 

(297) 60. Translated from the Aeneid, IV. 285: "Atque animum nunc hue celerem, 



570 ENGLISH POEMS 



nunc dividit illuc." HSo. /ze/= beloved (O.E. "leof"; from the same root as "love"; 
cf. the adverbial use, still ciurent, in "I had as lief go as not," etc.). 

(298) 105, 106. Mustard compares the Iliad, XVIII. 400-03: "Nine years, in 
company with them, I wrought in bronze many skilful pieces of workmanship, .... in the 
hollow cave; and around me the ocean-stream with murmuring foam flowed endless." H no. 
cow;eJ/= conception, thought. 1[ 139. a streamer of the northern morn: the flames of the 
aurora borealis. H 140. moving isles of winter: icebergs. 

(299) 169, 170. Mustard compares Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1. 240: "She smote 
each of her sacrificers with a piteous glance from her eye, remarkable in her beauty as 
in a pictiure." 

(300) 186. dry: the word seems here to be nearly equivalent to "grating," "harsh." 
Mustard compares a similar use of auos, "dry," "harsh," as in the Iliad, XII. 160: "And 
their helmets rang harsh"; and Van Dyke compares the use of "aridus" in Virgil's Georgics, 
I- 357: "A harsh noise begins to be heard upon the high mountains." K 215. greaves and 
cuisses: armor for the calves and the thighs. 

(301) 233. holy Elders: the Wise Men of the East, who brought oflferings to the infant 
Christ. H 240. Mustard compares Lucretius, De rerum natura, III. 964: "Cedit enim 
rerum novitate extrusa vetustas," "old things give way, being thrust out by new." If 254, 
255. Cf. the Iliad, VIII. 19 ff.; Paradise Lost, II. 10475.; and Bacon's Advancement of 
Learning, i. 3: "Then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily beUeve that 
the highest link of nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair." H 259. 
the island valley of Avilion: the Land of the Blessed, in Celtic mythology, correspondinij to 
the Happy Isles of the Greeks (see "Ulysses," 1. 63). The next four lines seem to owe some- 
thing to the description of Olympus, in the Odyssey, VI. 43, "it is not shaken by winds, nor 
drenched with rain, nor is there snow there"; and to the description of the island of Circe, 
in the Odyssey, X. 19s, "the island, crowned round with the boundless deep." 

(302) LocKSLEY Hall. " 'Locksley Hall is an imaginary place (though the coast is 
Lincolnshire), and the hero is imaginary. The whole poem represents young life, its good 
side, its deficiencies, and its yearnings. Mr. Hallam said to me that the English people liked 
verse in trochaics, so I wrote the poem in this metre.' .... I remember my father saying 
that Sir William Jones' prose translation of the Modllakilt, the seven Arabic poems (which 
are a selection from the work of pre-Mohammedan poets) hanging up in the temple of Mecca, 
gave him the idea of the poem." — Memoir, I. 195. In Englische Studien, XXVIII. 400, is 
a comparison of these Arabic poems with "Locksley Hall"; the similarity is not striking. 
^ 12. The reference is to the marvelous truths revealed by modern geology. 

(304) 71. one that perished: the loving and true Amy; cf. 11. 70, 73. 

(305) 75. 76. The poet is Dante, who says {La Divina Commedia, "Inferno," V. 
121-23), "There is no greater grief than to remember a happy time in misery." 

(306) 121-26. An anticipation of the perfecting of airships for use in commerce and 
war. 

(308) 152. The original editions have nothing but a common dash at the end of the 
line; but the sense seems to require a full stop and a long dash, for the thought in the next 
Une apparently goes back to the question asked in line 102. H 155. Mahratta-battle: the 
Mahrattas are the most warlike of the races of India; they had been at war whh the English 
in 1816-18. 

(309) 180. Joshua's moon: see Joshua 10: 13. H 182. "When I went by the first 
train from Liverpool to Manchester (1830), I thought that the wheels ran in a groove. It 
was a black night, and there was such a vast crowd round the train at the station that we 
could not see the wheels. Then I made this line." — Tennyson in the Memoir, I. 195. 

(309) Break, Break, Break. The poem is in memory of HaUam. "It was made 
in a Lincolnshire lane at five o'clock in the morning." — Tennyson, quoted by A. Waugh, 
Alfred Tennyson, a Study of His Life and Work (1892). 



NOTES 571 



(310) In Meuoriau. The poem is in commemoration of Arthur Henry Hallam, son 
of the historian Hallam, who died in Vienna, September 15, 1833. He entered Cambridge 
University while Tennyson was in residence there, and between the two soon sprang up a 
friendship of peculiar intimacy. Hallam's sudden death stirred the poet's nature to its 
depths; for a while everything seemed blank to him, and the problems of life and death pressed 
upon him with crushing weight. Out of this spiritual experience arose "In Memoriam," 
the sections of which were written at intervals during the next sixteen years. The sections 
chosen for the present volume are only slightly elegiacal; they deal less with the pwet's personal 
sorrow than with questions of modern religious thought, the discussion of which gives the 
poem its chief significance. 

The stanza, which Tennyson supposed he had invented, had been used by several 
English poets before him, including Ben Jonson (1573-1637) in an elegy beginning thus: 

Though beauty be the mark of praise. 

And yours of whom I sing be such 

As not the world can praise too much. 
Yet is 't your virtue now I raise. 

If Section xxxiv. 5. round of green: the earth, orb of flame: the sun. 

(311) Section xlvii. Contrast Shelley's attitude in "Adonais," U. 370-87. But in 
Section cxxx Tennyson comes nearer to Shelley's thought, although he doubtless still believes 
that his friend is in some sense individual and personal: 

Thy voice is on the rolling air; 

I hear thee where the waters run; 

Thou standest in the rising sun. 
And in the setting thou art fair. 

What art thou, then ? I cannot guess; 

But tho' I seem in star and flower 

To feel thee some diffusive power, 
I do not therefore love thee less. 

My love involves the love before; 

My love is vaster passion now; 

Tho' mixt with God and Nature thou, 
I seem to love thee more and more. 

Far off thou art, but ever nigh; 

I have thee still, and I rejoice; 

I prosper, circled with thy voice; 
I shall not lose thee tho' I die. 

(313) Section Ivi. 2. scarped=ai\. down perpendicularly. The allusion is to fossils 
of extinct animals, often found in such cUfEs. II26. thy voice: Hallam's. '\ Section xcvi. 

(314) 5- one: Hallam; cf. Section cix. ^22-24. See Exodus, chap. 32. ^Section 
cxiv. 12. Pallas: according to Greek mythology, Pallas sprang, completely armed, from 
the head of Zeus. H 16. Thomas Davidson, in his Prolegomena to "In Memoriam" (1889), 
remarks on this line, "Higher and truer than any clear conclusion which the understanding 
can draw from the physical facts of nature is the dim, half-formulated conclusion which the 
soul draws in response to its total experience, physical and spiritual." 

(315) Section cxviii. 4. earth and lime: "Human love and truth are part of that 
living process, and have no resemblance to the 'earth and Ume' of the fossil skeletons of extinct 
animals. ' ' — Davidson. 

(316) 27. the beast: "Tennyson later accepted the evolutionary idea that man's body 

is evolved from the lower orders of life But he wrote this passage several years before 

the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species; and it is by no means certain that the poet 
by 'beast' here meant anything more than the gross sensual passions." — Professor Squires. 

(316) Section cxxiv. 3. He: the Supreme conceived as personal and one; theism. 
They: polytheism. One.- the Supreme conceived as one but not necessarily personal; monism. 



572 ENGLISH POEMS 



All: the Supreme conceived as the sum total of things; pantheism, •within, without: in the 
soul, and in the world outside. 1[ 5-8. The first two lines refer to the argument for the 
existence of God derived from the order and apparent design in nature; the last two lines, 
to fine-spun metaphysical proofs. If 21. what I am: the central essence of man, his spiritual 
being, with its direct intuition into spiritual truth. ^ 22. What is: Absolute Being, the 
Supreme Existence. 

(316) Tears, Idle Tears. From "The Princess" (Part IV. 20-40). "The passion 
of the past, the abiding in the transient, was expressed in 'Tears,' which was written in the 

yellow autumn-tide at Tintern Abbey, fuU for me of its bygone memories Not real 

woe, .... rather the yearning that young people occasionally experience for that which 
seems to have passed away from them forever." — ^Tennyson, in the Memoir, I. 253; II. 73. 

(317) Sweet and Low. From "The Princess," between Parts II and III. 

(318) The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls. From "The Princess," between 
Parts III and IV. The poem was inspired by the echoes on the lake at Killarney, during 
Tennyson's visit there in 1847 {Memoir, I. 253). 

(318) The Brook. From the narrative poem with the same title. ^ 7. <feor^.r= hamlets. 
H 9. Philip's: Philip is a character in the narrative poem. 

(319) 19. fairy foreland: diminutive headland, or promontory; cf. "Aylmer's Field," 

11. 91, 92: 

The little dells of cowslip, fairy palms, 
The petty mare's-tail forest, fairy pines. 

(320) Northern Farmer, Old Style. "Roden Noel calls these two poems 'photo- 
graphs,' but they are imaginative. The first is founded on the dying words of a farm-bailiflf, 
as reported to me by a great-uncle of mine when verging upon 80 — ' God A'mighty little knows 
what He 's about, a-taking me. An' Squire will be so mad an' all.' I conjectured the man 
from that one saying." — Memoir, 11. g. Tf i. 'oi/(i= hast thou. Tf 3. woaw/ 'a=may not have. 
^[5. a=he. H 10. you: "ou" as in "hour" (Tennyson's note). 'j.siew= himself. If 11. 
towd >wa=told me. If 12. boy 'um = hy him. If 14. barne=haxTn, child. If 15. Thaw= 
though. Tf 16. r(jo/e= church rate, or tax. If 18. buzzard-clock = coQk.dh.3.iec (Tennyson's 
note). It 21. tha—thovL. Tf 23. '5TOer= howsoever. If 28. j/M66ei= dug up the stubs from. 
If 30. haggle— hoglt, haunting ghost. 

(321) 31. 6M«er-6Mm^=bittern (Tennyson's note). If 32. raavei a»' rew6/ei=tore up 
and threw away. If 33. Reaper's it WMr=gamekeeper's [ghost] it was. If 34. 'enemies= 
anemones (Tennyson's note). Kss. toa»er= one or other. If 36. 'joize= the assizes, session 
of court. If 40. Fourscoor: "ou" as in "hour" (Tennyson's note), yows— ewes. If 42. 
ta-year=tins year. If 46. wonn=one. If 49. mowt^might. 'ant=haint. 'adpoth=haXU 
penny-worth. If 54. sewer-loy= surely. If 60. moant =mustn't. 

(322) 65. aWa=art thou. 1166. '/oaW/er= teetotaler, hallus i' the owd /ad/e=always 
in the old tale, i. e., always harping on the same string. 

(322) Milton. Tennyson printed this poem, with three others, under the general 
heading, "In Quantity," and these Hnes he designated, in a subtitle, as "Alcaics." "My 
alcaics are not intended for Horatian alcaics, nor are Horace's alcaics the Greek alcaics. 
.... The Greek alcaic, if we may judge from the two or three specimens left, had a much 
freer and lighter movement; and I have no doubt that an old Greek if he knew our language 
would admit my alcaics as legitimate, only 'Milton' must not be pronounced 'Milton.' " — 
Memoir, II. 11. The scheme of the Greek alcaic stanza is as follows: 



NOTES 573 

(323) RizPAH. The title is taken from the Old Testament story of Rizpah: "But the 
king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, .... 
and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill 

before the Lord And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for 

her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of 
heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the 
field by night." — ll Samuel 21 : 8-10. Tennyson said (Memoir, II. 249-51) that the poem was 
founded on an incident, which he read in a cheap magazine, connected with the robbing of 
the mail by two men, Rooke and Howell, in the eighteenth century: "They were gibbeted 
on the spot where the robbery was committed, and there is an affecting story connected with 
the body of Rooke. When the elements had caused the clothes and flesh to decay, his aged 
mother, night after night, in all weathers, and the more tempestuous the weather the more 
frequent the visits, made a sacred pilgrimage to the lonely spot on the downs, and it was 
noticed that on her return she always brought something away with her in her apron. Upon 
being watched it was discovered that the bones of the hanging man were the objects of her 
search, and as the wind and rain scattered them on the ground she conveyed them to her 
home. There she kept them, and, when the gibbet was stripped of its horrid burden, in the 
dead silence of the night she interred them in the hallowed inclosure of Old Shoreham Church- 
yard." 

(336) To Virgil, Subtitle, "Written at the Request of the Mantuans for the Nine- 
teenth Centenary of Virgil's Death." f 1-4. This stanza refers to the Aeneid. ^6. he: 
Hesiod, the Greek poet, of the eighth century b. c, whose Works and Days is somewhat like 
Virgil's Georgics. H 9, 10. These lines refer to Virgil's Gcorgics, in which he gives directions 
about the care of fields, trees, domestic animaJs, and bees. 

(327) 13. 14- These lines refer to the first of Virgil's Eclogues. If is, 16. These Mnes 
refer to the sixth eclogue, U. 13-26. H 17-20. These lines refer to the fourth eclogue, which 
is addressed to PoUio, one of Virgil's patrons, and prophesies the return of the Golden Age. 
Tf 19. Summers of the snakeless meadow: cf. "Occidet et serpens" {Eclogues, IV. 24), "And 
the serpent shall die." H 20. urdaborious earth: cf. "Non rastros patietur humus" (£c/ogMei, 
IV. 40), "The soil will not be hurt with mattocks." oarless sea: cf. "Cedet et ipse mari 
vector, nee nautica pinus mutabit merces: omnis feret omnia te lus" (Eclogues, IV. 38, 39), 
"The ocean-carrier himself will give up the sea, nor will the ship exchange merchandise, for 
every land wiU bear all things." U 21, 22. Cf. the Aeneid, VI. 724-27: 

Principio caelum ac terras camposque liquentis 
Lucentemque globum Lunae Titaniaque astra 
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus 
Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet. 

"In the first place, sky and earth and the Uquid plains and the shining orb of Luna and the 
Titanian stars a spirit within nourishes, and, infused through the Umbs, a mind agitates 
the whole mass and mingles with the great body." U 27. An allusion to the golden branch 
("aureus ramus") in the dark grove neax the mouth of Hades, by which, as an offering to 
Proserpine, Aeneas gained admission to the lower world; see the Aeneid, VI. 136-43. If 30. 
purple Caesar: the state robes of the Roman emperors were purple. H 35, 36. Cf. Virgil's 
Eclogues, I. 67: "Et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos," "And the Britains wholly cut 
off from the whole world." If 37. Mantovano: Virgil, who was born near Mantua. 

(330) Crossing the Bar. "Written in my father's eighty-first year, on a day in 
October when we came from Aldworth to Farringford. Before reaching Farringford he had 
the Moaning of the Bar in his mind, and after dinner he showed me this poem written out. 
I said, 'That is the crown of yoiur life's work.' He answered, 'It came in a moment.' He 
explained the 'Pilot' as 'That Divine and Unseen Who is always guiding us.' A few days 
before my father's death he said tome: 'Mind you put "Crossing the Bar" at the end of all 



574 ENGLISH POEMS 



editions of my poems.' " — Memoir, II. 366. In going to Farringford, on the Isle of Wight, 
the poet crossed the Solent, the strait between the mainland and the island. 

Contemporary Criticism 

A prefatory sonnet opens to the reader the aspirations of the young author, in which, 
after the manner of sundry poets, ancient and modern, he expresses his own peculiar character 
by wishing himself to be something that he is not. The amorous Catullus aspired to be a 

sparrow Mr. Tennyson (though he, too, would, as far as his true love is concerned, 

not unwilUngly "be an ear-ring," "a girdle," and "a necklace") in the more serious and 
solemn exordium of his works ambitions a bolder metamorphosis — he wishes to be — o river: 

Mine be the strength of spirit fierce and free. 
Like some broad river rushing down alone — 

rivers that travel in company are too common for his taste — 

With the self-same impulse wherewith he was thrown — 

a beautiful and harmonious Kne — 

From his loud fount upon the echoing lea : 
Which, with increasing might, doth forward flee. 

Every word of this line is valuable — the natural progress of human ambition is here strongly 
characterized — two lines ago he would have been satisfied with the self-same impulse — but 
now he must have increasing might; and indeed he would require all his might to accora- 
pUsh his object of fleeing forward, that is, going backwards and forwards at the same time. 

doth forward flee 
By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle. 
And in the middle of the green salt sea 
Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile. 

A noble wish, beautifully expressed, that he may not be confounded with the deluge of ordi- 
nary poets, but, amidst their discolored and briny ocean, still preserve his own bright tints 
and sweet savor. He may be at ease on this point — he never can be mistaken for any one 
else. We have but too late become acquainted with him, yet we assure ourselves that if a 
thousand anonymous specimens were presented to us, we should unerringly distinguish his 

by the total absence of any particle of salt 

"The Lady of Shalott" is a poem in four parts, the story of which we decUne to maim 
by such an analysis as we could give, but it opens thus: 

On either side the river he 
Long fields of barley and of rye. 
That clothe the wold and meet the sky — 
And through the field the road runs hy. 

The Lady of Shalott was, it seems, a spinster who had, under some unnamed penalty, a 

certain web to weave A knight, however, happens to ride past her window 

The lady stepped to the window to look at the stranger, and forgot for an instant her web : 
— the curse fell on her, and she died; why, how, and wherefore, the following stanzas will 
clearly and pathetically explain The "Lotus-eaters" — a kind of classical opium- 
eaters — are Ulysses and his crew. They land on the "charmed island," and "eat of the 
charmed root," and then they sing: 

Long enough the winedark wave our weary bark did carry. 

This is lovelier and sweeter. 

Men of Ithaca, this is meeter. 

In the hollow rosy vale to tarry, 

Like a dreamy Lotus-eater — a deUcious Lotus-eater ! 

We will eat the Lotus, sweet 

As the yellow honeycomb; 

In the valley some, and some 



NOTES 575 

On the ancient heights divine, 

And no more roam, 

On the loud hoar foam. 

To the melancholy home, 

At the limits of the brine. 

The little isle of Ithaca, beneath the day's decline. 

Our readers will, we think, agree that this is admirably characteristic and that the singers 
of this song must have made pretty free with the intoxicating fruit. How they got home 
you must read in Homer; Mr. Tennyson — himself, we presume, a dreamy lotus-eater, a 

dehcious lotus-eater — leaves them in full song 

The other vision is "A Dream of Fair Women," in which the heroines of all ages — 
some, indeed, that belong to the times of "heathen goddesses most rare" — pass before his 
view. We have not time to notice them all, but the second, whom we take to be Iphigenia, 
touches the heart with a stroke of nature more powerful than even the veil that the Grecian 
painter threw over the head of her father. 

dimly I could descry 
The stern blackbearded kings with wolfish eyes. 
Watching to see me die. 

The tall masts quivered as they lay afloat. 

The temples, and the people, and the sliore; 
One drew a sharp knife through my tender throat — 

Slowly, — and nothing more! 

What touching simplicity — what pathetic resignation — he cut my throat — "nothing morel" 
One might indeed ask "what more" she would have ? 

But we must hasten on; and to tranquillize the reader's mind after this last affecting 
scene, we shall notice the only two pieces of a lighter strain which the volume affords. The 
first is elegant and playful; it is a description of the author's study, which he affectionately 

calls his "Darling Room." 

O darling room, my heart's delight; 
Dear room, the apple of my sight; _ 
With thy two couches, soft and white, 
There is no room so exquisite; 
No Uttle room so warm and bright. 
Wherein to read, wherein to write. 

We entreat our readers to note how, even in this little trifle, the singular taste and genius of 
Mr. Tennyson break forth. In such a dear Uttle room a narrow-minded scribbler would 
have been content with one sofa, and that one he would probably have covered with black 
mohair, or red cloth, or a good striped chintz; how infinitely more characteristic is white 
dimity! — 'tis as it were a type of the purity of the poet's mind. — The Quarterly Review, 
April, 1833, on Poems, by Alfred Teimyson, 1833. (The article was written by J. G. Lock- 
hart, Scott's biographer.) 

In powers of narrative and scene-painting combined, this poem ["The Lady of Shalott"] 
must be ranked among the very first of its class. The delineation of outward objects, as in 
the greater number of Mr. Tennyson's poems, is, not picturesque, but (if we may use the 
term) statuesque, with brilliancy of color superadded. The forms are not, as in painting, of 
unequal degrees of definiteness; the tints do not melt gradually into each other, but each 

individual object stands out in bold relief, with a clear decided outline Along with all 

this there is in the poem all that power of making a few touches do the whole work, which 
excites oiur admiration in Coleridge. Every Une suggests so much more than it says that 
much may be left unsaid; the concentration, which is the soul of narrative, is obtained without 
the sacrifice of reaUty and Ufe. Where the march of the story requires that the mind shall 
pause, details are specified; where rapidity is necessary, they are all brought before us at a 
flash. Except that the versification is less exquisite, the " Lady of Shalott" is entitled to a place 
by the side of "The Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel." .... 

The length to which our quotations have extended, and the unsatisfactoriness of short 



576 ENGLISH POEMS 



extracts, prevent us from giving any specimen of one of the finest of Mr. Tennyson's poems, 
"The Lotus-Eaters." .... The poem is not of such sustained merit in the execution as 
some of the others; but the general impression resembles an effect of cUmate in a landscape: 
we see the objects through a drowsy, relaxing, but dreamy atmosphere, and the inhabitants 
seem to have inhaled the hke 

The poems which we have quoted from Mr. Tennyson prove incontestably that he 
possesses, in an eminent degree, the natural endowment of a poet — the poetic temperament. 
And it appears clearly, not only from a comparison of the two volumes, but of different poems 
in the same volume, that, with him, the other element of poetic excellence — intellectual cul- 
tiu-e — is advancing both steadily and rapidly; that he is not destined, hke so many others, 
to be remembered for what he might have done rather than for what he did; that he will not 

remain a poet of mere temperament, but is ripening into a true artist We will not 

conclude without reminding Mr. Tennyson that if he wishes his poems to live he has still 

much to do in order to perfect himself in the merely mechanical parts of his craft In 

some of the most beautiful of Mr. Teimyson's productions there are awkwardnesses and 
feeblenesses of expression, occasionally even absurdities, to be corrected, and which generally 
might be corrected without impairing a single beauty. His powers of versification are not 
yet of the highest order. In one great secret of his art, the adaptation of the music of his 
verse to the character of the subject, he is far from being a master: he often seems to take 
his metres almost at random. But this is little to set in the balance against so much excel- 
lence, and needed not have been mentioned except to indicate to Mr. Tennyson the points on 
which some of his warmest admirers see most room and most necessity for further effort on 
his part, if he would secure to himself the high place in our poetic hterature for which so many 
of the qualifications are aheady his own. — TJie London Review, July, 1835. (The article 
was written by J. S. MiU.) 

The first of these two volumes consists of republished poems, and may be regarded, 
we presume, as all that Mr. Tennyson wishes to preserve of his former editions. He has 
sifted in most cases his earlier harvests, and kept the better grain. There are some additions 
of verses and stanzas here and there, many minute changes, and also beneficial shortenings 
and condensations. The second volume, however, is on the whole far advanced in merit 
beyond the first. There is more clearness, sohdity, and certainty of mind visible in it 
throughout; especially some of the blank- verse poems — a style almost unattempted in the 
earUer series — have a quiet completeness and depth, a sweetness arising from the happy 
balance of thought, feeUng, and expression, that ranks them among the riches of our recent 
literature. — The Quarterly Review, September, 1842, on Poems, by Alfred Tennyson, 1842. 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 

(330) Sonnets from the Portuguese. These sonnets were written during the court- 
ship of Miss Barrett by Robert Browning, and were not shown to him until they had been 
married some months. In order to veil somewhat the personal element, she intended to call 
them "Sonnets Translated from the Bosnian." Mr. Browning suggested the present title, 
for its glancing reference to her "Catarina to Camoens," which was one of his favorite poems. 
They were privately printed in 1847, but not published until 1850. 

(330) Sonnet I. 1-4. See Theocritus, Idyls, XV. 104, 105: "Tardiest of the Immor- 
tals are the beloved Hours, but dear and desired they come, for always, to all mortals, they 
bring some gift with them." — Lang's translation. 

(332) A Musical Instrument. For the Greek story about Pan's invention of the 
syrinx, see p. 557. 

(333) The Forced Recruit. Based on an incident in the battle of Solferino, June 
24, 1859, between the Austrians and the allied Italians and French, in the struggle for the 
Uberation of Italy from Austria, a struggle in which Mrs. Browning was intensely interested. 



NOTES 577 

ROBERT BROWNING 

(334) Heap Cassia, Sandal-Buds, and Stripes. From "Paracelsus" (IV. igo- 
205). H I. cassia: a kind of cinnamon. ^ a. labdanum: a pungent gum resin, aloe-balls: 
aloe is a fragrant resin. If 3. »ar(i= spikenard. 

(335) The Year's at the Spring. From "Pippa Passes" (I. 221-28) 

(33s) Cavalier Tunes. I. Marching Along. ^ i. Kentish Sir Byng: tlie Byngs were 
an old family in Kent, and stout loyalists. H 7. Pym: John Pym was a leader in the Long 
Parliament, and aided in the impeachment of Strafford and Laud. If 13. Hampden: John 
Hampden, who fought in the courts the attempt of Charles I to levy an obsolete tax, called 
ship-money; he died in 1643, apparently just before the time of this song. If 14. Hazelrig: 
one of the five leaders of the long Parliament that Charles tried to arrest in 1642 just before, 
the outbreak of civil war. Fiennes: John Fiennes, son of Viscount Saye and Sele, and promi- 
nent as a cavalry officer in the Civil War. young Harry: Sir Henry Vane the younger, who, 
after serving as governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636-37, returned to England 
and became prominent in the Long Parliament on the popular side. 

(336) 15. Rupert: Prince Rupert, nephew of Charles I, the dashing leader of the 
king's cavalry. If 22. Nottingham: at the outbreak of civil war the king raised the royal 
standard at Nottingham, and his supporters flocked to him there. 

(336) II. Give a Rouse. If 16. Noll's: Oliver Cromwell's. 

(337) My Last Duchess. 

(338) 45, 46. Professor Hiram Corson writes that Browning, in reply to his question, 
said, "Yes, I meant that the commands were that she be put to death," adding, after a pause, 
"or he might have had her shut up in a convent." 

(338) The Laboratory. The scene of the poem is France. 

(339) 37- The sense is, "My reason for wanting a larger dose is not that she may be 
killed quickly and without much pain." 

(340) 44. The sense is, "Anything which hurts her is too sweet to me to hurt me." 
(340) How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Arx. "There is no 

sort of historical foundation about 'Good News from Ghent.' I wrote it under the bulwark 
of a vessel oS the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the 
fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse 'York,' then in my stable at home. It 
was written in pencil on the fly-leaf of Bartoli's Simboli, I remember." — Browning. But 
the ride is described with considerable attention to verisimilitude. The distance from Ghent, 
in Flanders, to Aix-la-Chapelle, in west Prussia, is about ninety miles; most of the towns 
mentioned are in the direct route between the two places, and the distances are about what 
they should be— thus Diiffeld, which they reach in the early morning, after starting at mid- 
night, is some forty miles from Ghent, and Mecheln, from whose great cathedral towrr they 
hear the chime, is a few miles south of their course, within earshot in the still of the morning. 
% 10. pique=the peak or pommel of the saddle. 

(342) The Lost Leader. In reply to a question whether Wordsworth was meant in 
this poem. Browning wrote, in 1875: " I did in my hasty youth presume to use the great 
and venerated personality of Wordsworth as a sort of painter's model; one from which this 
or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to account: had I intended more, 
above all, such a boldness as portraying the entire man, I should not have talked about 'hand- 
fuls of silver and bits of ribbon.' These never influenced the change of politics in the great 
poet; whose defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face-about of his 
special party, was to my juvenile apprehension, and even mature consideration, an event to 
deplore." — The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, edited by A. B. Grosart, I. xxxvii. 
If 7. had gone=would have gone. If 8. The sense is, "If the rags, which was aU our poverty 
could furnish, had been royal robes, we would have arrayed him in them and he would have 
been proud of our devotion." *f[ 29. Best fight on well: i. e., it is best for him to fight us 
gallantly, sticking to the side he has now chosen, instead of coming back to us. 



578 ENGLISH POEMS 



(343) Home Thoughts, from the Sea. The voyager is off the west coast of northern 
Africa, and southwest of Spain; stretched in a great arc before him, from west to east, lie 
Cape St. Vincent (where the English won a naval victory over the Spanish in 1797), Cadiz 
Bay, Cape Trafalgar (the scene of Nelson's great victory in 1805), and the straits of Gibraltar. 

(344) Parting at Morning. 1 1. came the sea: as the lover's boat rounded the point ? 
H 3. him: the sun. 1 4. me: the man. 

(344) The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Peaxed's Church. St. Praxed's 
Church, built in the ninth century, restored in the fifteenth, and containing some very old 
mosaics and rich stone-work, is one of the smaller churches of Rome and is situated in a quiet 
side-street. For these reasons the weary old bishop, fuU of the Renaissance love of beautiful 
things, might naturally choose it for his last resting-place. H 1. The bishop is quoting Eccle- 
siastes i: 2: "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity." If 3. 
Nephews — sons mine: he is accustomed, for propriety's sake, to call them his nephews 
although they are really his sons. / know not: i. e., whether you are my sons or not; but 
cf. 11. 36, 64. II4. She, men: supply "whom" after "she." I5. Gandolf: a feUow eccle- 
siastic. 

(34s) 26. tabernacle: a stone canopy over the sarcophagus, supported by columns of 
peach-blossom marble; under it on the top of the sarcophagus, will be the recumbent statue 
of the bishop. Ksi. onion-stone: a greenish marble, splitting into concentric coats like an 
onion (Italian "cipoUno," a Uttle onion); Gandolph's tomb is made of this inferior stone. 
H 41. olive-frail: a basket of rushes, for olives. ^ 42. lapis lazuli: a rich blue stone, f 46. 
Frascati villa: Frascati, fifteen miles from Rome, on the north slope of the Alban hills, was 
a favorite summer resort for the wealthy inhabitants of Rome. If 47. between my knees: i. e., 
between the knees of his effigy on his tomb. If 48, 49. "The Gesu, the principal church ot 

the Jesuits, one of the richest and most gorgeous in Rome On the architrave above 

are two statues: God the Father, .... and Christ; .... between these, the globe of 
the earth, consisting of a single block of lapis lazuli (said to be the largest in existence)." — 
Baedeker's Italy. If 51, 52. Cf. Job 7: 6, 9: "My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle, 
and are spent without hope; .... as the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that 
goeth down to the grave shall come up no more." If 55. my frieze: just below the top slab, 
and running around the sarcophagus, is to be a band of bronze with figures in bas-relief, 
which the bishop enumerates. ^ 58. tripod: associated with the oracle at Delphi, where 
the priestess sat on a tripod, over the rift in the earth whence came the fumes that were sup- 
posed to inspu-e her. thyrsus: the thyrsus, a staff twined with ivy or the vine and topped 
with a pine-cone, was associated with the worship of Bacchus. 

(346) 66. travertine: a white limestone. If 71. pure green: "Probably the variety 
known as bloodstone, deep green with blood-red spots; no stone takes a finer polish." — W. J. 
Rolfe, Select Poems of Robert Browning (1886). 1 78. Gandolf's second line: cf. 1. 99, where, 
apparently, we are given a specimen of the inferior Latin in the second line of Gandolf's 
epitaph. *\ 79. Ulpian: a Roman law-writer, living in the latter part of the second century 
A. D.; his Latin style is naturally less pure than that of TuUy (Marcus TuUius Cicero). 
f 87. crook: the statue of a bishop has a crosier, made somewhat like a shepherd's crook, 
the symbol of his function as a shepherd of souls. If 98. marble's language: i. e., language 
best adapted, by its conciseness and dignity, for inscriptions on marble. If 99. elucescebat: 
there is no such word in classical Latm. If loi. Cf. Genesis 47:9: "And Jacob said vmto 
Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and 
evil have the days of the years of my life been." 

(347) 108. a Term: a bust ending downward in a square block, like the statues of Ter- 
minus, the Roman god of boundaries, who was thus represented without feet, to suggest his 
fixity. 

(347) Saul. Lines 1-97 were published in 1845; the rest, in 1855. The poem is based 
upon I Samuel 16:14-23. If i, Abner; the captain of Saul's host (I Samuel 14:50)- 



NOTES 579 

^9. "But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord 
troubled him." — I Samuel 16: 14. 

(348) 45. jerboa: a small jumping rodent, with a long taU. 

(350) loi- The Lord's army: the host of angels. 

(354) 204. Hebron upheaves: the city is on a hiU. 1 205. Kidron: a brook near 
Jerusalem; in hot countries small bodies of water may dwindle perceptibly, under the sun's 
rays, even in one day. 

(355) 217- what a man may waste: God's anointing for a great work; see I Sam- 
uel 10: I. 

(357) 292. Sabaoth—axmies, hosts; here, the hosts of angels. 

(359) Love among the Ruins. The poem was written in Rome, and the scene of it 
seems to be the Roman Campagna, once the site of populous towns, in the prosperous days 
of the Roman Empire, now a desolate waste covered with ruins; but there was no city there 
as large as the city of the poem, except Rome. If 9. capital: supply "which." If 15. verdure: 
supply "which." If 17. else: i. e., if it were not for the rills. If 23. marble: supply "which." 

(361) Fea Lippo Lrppi. The poem is an interpretation of the personality and art of 
the Florentine painter, Fra Filippo Lippi (1406 ?-69), and is based upon Vasari's life of him. 
f 2. your torches: his captors are the night-watch of Florence. K 7. The Carmine: a mon- 
astery of the Carmelite friars, in Florence. Tf 12. you know your betters? Apparently one 
of the watchmen had said that it was not for them to spy on the friars. If 17. Cosimo of the 
Medici: the Florentine banker, statesman, and patron of literature and art, who practically 
ruled the republic of Florence by putting his creatures into the chief oflSces; he lived from 
1389 to 1464. *[f 18. Bohl you were best/ On hearing that his patron is the great Cosimo, 
the watchman lets go of his throat. 

(362) 21. you, sir: the head-watch. II 23. ^i/cfearfc cheap fish, somewhat like herring. 
If 47. shut within my mew: it was often necessary to lock Fra Lippo Lippi in, to keep him 
at work. If 57. Round they went: the reference is to the song he heard, of the kind called 
"stomello," a folk-song, often extemporized, which went round the circle of singers, each 
inventing a few lines. 

(363) 67. Saint Lawrence: the church of San Lorenzo. 

(364) 117. processional: in a religious procession, where lighted candles are carried 
by some of the worshipers. If 121. the Eight: a magistracy of eight citizens, who admin- 
istered the city government. If 127. remarks=ohstrva.tions, things noticed. % 130. antiph- 
onary's: the antiphonary is the service-book, containing the musical responses and the 
antiphonal chants or songs, with the notes. 

(365) 139. Camaldolese: the monks of the abbey of Camaldoli, a few miles from 
Florence; the church of the abbey, recently rebuilt, had many art treasures. If 140. Preach- 
ing Friars: the Dominican friars. If 145. monk, the black and white: Dominicans and 
Carmelites; so called from the color of their robes. 

(366) 189. Giotto: a Florentine painter and architect (1266 P-I336); his pictures have 
the defective technique and naive simplicity of early Italian painting, but are full of religious 
feeling. If 196. Herodias: see Matthew, chap. 14. 

(367) 235. Brother Angelico: Fra Angelico (1387-1455), although contemporary with 
Lippi, was of the earlier ascetic school. If 236. Brother Lorenzo: Lorenzo Monaco (1370?- 
1425), a painter of the conservative school and influenced by Fra Angelico; he was one of 
the Camaldolese monks. ^261-64. "You" here refers to the monks. 

(368) 276. Guidi: Tommaso Guidi (1401-28?), usually called Masaccio (Tommasaccio, 
" Slovenly or Hulking Tom "), a Florentine painter and founder of the modern, naturalistic 
school, to which Fra Lippo Lippi belonged. "From his time and forward, religious painting 
in the old sense was at an end. Painters no longer attempted to transcend Nature, but to 
copy her, and to copy her in her loveliest aspects." — Ernest Radford, m. Browning Society's 
Illustrations. Lippi was the pupil of Masaccio, not his master as Browning makes him, being 



58o ENGLISH POEMS 



some years his junior. It would seem that Browning inverted their relation intentionally, to 
increase the artistic importance of the central figure of his poem; but a writer in the Browning 
Society'' s Papers (Part II, p. i6o) says that Browning stated, in a letter to The Pall Mall 
Gazelle, that "he followed the best authority he had access to, the last edition of Vasari." 

(369) 324. Prato: a town near Florence; in the church there are frescoes by Lippi. 
H 328. St. Lawrence, an archdeacon, suffered martyrdom in 258 A. d., by being roasted on a 
gridiron. II331. rage: i. e., at the sufferings of the martyr. I339. Chianti: a region a 
few miles south of Florence, famous for its excellent wines. 

(370) 345- There's for you: he "tips" them again, to insure his release; of. 1. 27. 
II346. Sanl' Ambrogio's: the convent of St. Ambrose, in Florence. ^ 348. God in the midst: 
the picture, called "The Coronation of the Virgin," is now in the Academy of Fine Arts, 
Florence. H 354. Saint John: John the Baptist, the patron saint of Florence. K 377. Isle 
perfecil optis="iha.i one made the work." In the picture these words are on a scroll, which 
extends from the hand of one of the angels to Fra Lippo Lippi. 

(371) Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. Browning printed a line under 
the title — "See Edgar's song in 'Lear.' " The song is the following (King Lear, III. iv) : 

Child Rowland to the dark tower came, 

His word was still, — Fie, foh, and fum, 
I smell the blood of a British man. 

There is an old legend that Childe Roland went to elf-land to bring back his sister Ellen, 
who had been carried away by the fairies. (See English and Scottish Popular Ballads, edited 
by F. J. Child, I. 322.) "We are reduced to taking the poem as a simple work of fancy, 
built up of picturesque impressions which have, separately or collectively, produced them- 
selves in the author's mind. I may venture to state that these picturesque materials included 
a tower which Mr. Browning once saw in the Carrara Mountains, a painting which caught 
his eye years later in Paris, and the figure of a horse in the tapestry in his own drawing-room — 
welded together in the remembrance of the line from King Lear which forms the heading 
of the poem." — Mrs. Orr's Handbook to the Works of Robert Browning. "I asked the poet 
what he had symbolized in the dark tower and Childe Roland's bugle-blast, thinking that 
he had intended to represent, by the tower, the stronghold of scepticism, of unbelief, of mate- 
rialism, which would be razed to the ground when Science comprehends that the law which 
develops sound develops every natural law in the universe, and that at the first blast which 

she blows, with this knowledge, the dark tower must crumble Mr. Browning replied 

that Childe Roland was 'only a fantaisie,' that he had written it 'because it pleased his fancy.' " 
— Clara Bloomfield-Moore, in Lippincoil's Magazine, May, 1890. In a discussion at a meeting 
of the London Browning Society, after a paper by Mr. Kirkman (Browning Society's Papers, 
Part III, p. 21), Dr. Furnivall said "he had asked Browning if it was an allegory, and in 
answer had, on three separate occasions, received an emphatic 'no'; that it was simply a 
dramatic creation called forth by a line of Shakespeare's." "Upon the lengthwise wall of 
the room, above the Italian furniture, sombre and richly carved, was a long, wide band of 
tapestry, on which I thought I recognized the miserable horse of Childe Roland's pilgrimage. 
.... I asked Mr. Browning if the beast of the tapestry was the beast of the poem; and he 

said yes, and descanted somewhat on his lean monstrosity I further asked him if 

he had said that he only wrote 'Childe Roland' for its realistic imagery, without any moral 
purpose, — a notion to which Mrs. Sutherland Orr has given currency; and he protested that 
he never had. When I asked him if constancy to an ideal — 'He that endureth to the end 
shall be saved' — was not a sufficient understanding of the central purpose of the poem, he 
said, 'Yes, just about that.' " — The Rev. John W. Chadwick. 

Childe: the word was used in old ballads for the son of a noble house, especially before 
he was admitted to knighthood, — a squire; but it was also used for a knight. 

(373) 68. the bents=hlades oi coatse grass. HSo. coWo^ei=" having ridges or bunches 
of flesh like coUops." — International Dictionary. A coUop is a slice or lump of meat. 



NOTES 581 

(37s) 150. r««66/e= broken stones. If 161. dragon-penned=]ike the wings of a dragon 
(Latin "penna," a feather, a wing). 

(376) 182. blind as the jooVs heart: cf. Psalms 14: i, "The fool hath said in his heart, 
There is no God." H 203. slug-horn: a corruption of "slogan" (war-cry), incorrectly used 
here for a kind of horn. 

(381) A Grammarian's Funeral. ^3. cro//5=smaU farm inclosures. thorpes 
= villages. H 18. ot'ercoOTe= pass over, overshadow. 

(383) 86. Calculus=the stone. 1[88. Tussis=a. cough. tpS- hydroptic = thirs,ty, as 
in dropsy. 

(384) 122. mind=a.ttend to. H 129. Hoti's: the Greek conjunction, oti, "that," etc. 
K 130. Oun: the Greek adverb ovv, "then," "now then," etc. ^ 131. Ihe enclitic De: the 
Greek particle Se when it is attached to the preceding word. "To the Editor of The Daily 
News. Sir,- — In a clever article this morning you speak of 'the doctrine of the enclitic de' — 
'which, with all deference to Mr. Browning, in point of fact does not exist.' No, not to Mr. 
Browning: but pray defer to Herr Buttmann, whose fifth list of 'enclitics' ends 'with the 
inseparable de' — or to Curtius, whose fifth list ends also with 'de (meaning "towards" and as 
a demonstrative appendage).' That this is not to be confounded with the accentuated 'de, 
meaning but,' was the 'doctrine' which the Grammarian bequeathed to those capable of 
receiving it. — I am, sir, yours obediently, R. B." — Browning, in the London Daily News, 
November 21, 1874. 

(384) Prospice. The poem was written a few months after Mrs. Browning's death; 
see the last three lines. The title means "Look Forward." 

(385) Among the Rocks. Section vii of "James Lee's Wife." 

(386) Abt Vogler. Abt Vogler was born in Bavaria, in 1749; he was a Catholic 
priest, but devoted most of his time to music; he invented the orchestrion, a compact organ, 
composed operas and other works, and was famous as an extemporizer; he died in 1814. 

"He was indisputably the first organist of his age His extempore playing never failed 

to create an impression, and in the elevated fugal style he easily distanced all rivals." — Grove's 
Dictionary of Mtisic and Musicians (1879-89). Abt: the German form of "Abbe." H 3. 
as when Solomon willed. Browning follows Mohammedan legends: "We also tried Solomon. 
.... And we also put the devils in subjection under him; and among them such as were 
every way skilled in building, and in diving for pearls." — The Koran, chap, xxxviii. Sale's 

translation. "And Solomon was David's heir And his armies were gathered together 

unto Solomon, consisting of genii and men and hiids."— Ibid., chap, xxvii. U 9. Would it 
might tarry: this resumes the main sentence, begun in 1. i and interrupted by the long com- 
parison about Solomon. H 17. wiMJOw= obsequious servant. If 19. ram^j>e(/= having ram- 
parts, or bulwarks. If 21. a runner: a running line of fire. If 23. Rome's dome: the dome 
of St. Peter's. ^ 25. to match: in order to match. 

(387) 34. Protoplast: the type, or model, the original (Greek TrpioTos, first, and TrAatrTos, 
formed). 

(388) 69. Cf. "Rabbi BenEzra," 11. 157-62. If 73-8°- Cf. Shelley's "Sensitive Plant,' 
Part in. 130-37: 

That garden sweet, that lady fair. 

And all sweet shapes and odours there, 

In truth have never passed away : 

'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they. 

For love and beauty and delight 

There is no death nor change: their might 

Exceeds our organs, which endure 

No light, being themselves obscure. 

If 81-84. Cf. "The Last Ride Together," 11. 89-99, and "Rabbi Ben Ezra," 11. 37-42, 133-50- 

(389) 91-96. "C Major is what may be called the natural scale, having no sharps or 
flats in its signature. A Minor, with A (a third below C) for its keynote, has the same signa- 
ture, but sharps are introduced for the formation of correct intervals. Pauer says that minor 



582 ENGLISH POEMS 



keys are chosen for expressing 'intense seriousness, soft melancholy, longing, sadness, and 
passionate grief.' .... Perhaps Browning chose C Major for the key, as the one most. 
alUed to matters of everyday life, including rest and sleep. The common chord, as it is 
called, the keynote with its third and fifth, contains the rudiments of all music." — Helen J. 
Ormerod, "Some Notes on Browning's Poems Relating to Music," Browning Society'' s Papers, 
Part IX. 

(389) Rabbi Ben Ezra. " One of the most eminent of the Jewish literati of the Middle 
Ages. He was born at Toledo about 1090; left Spain for Rome about 1140; resided after- 
wards .... in England (1159); and died probably in 1168. He was distinguished as a 
philosopher, astronomer, physician, and poet, but especially as a grammarian and commen- 
tator. The works by which he is best known form a series of commentaries on the books of 

the Old Testament Abenezra's commentaries are acknowledged to be of very great 

value; he was the first who raised biblical exegesis to the rank of a science, interpreting the 
text according to its hteral sense, and illustrating it from cognate languages. His style is 
elegant, but so concise as to be sometimes obscure; and he occasionally indulges in epigram." 
— Encyclopaedia Britannica. The rabbi, as a reUgious teacher who attained to a good old 
age, might well have been taken as the mouth-piece of the poet in this poem, without special 
regard to the particular doctrines which the Hebrew sage really taught. But Browning 
seems also to have based the poem in part upon the actual philosophy of Rabbi Ben Ezra, so 
far as this agreed with his own way of thinking. ^ 4. Our titnes are in His hand: cf. "In 
Thy hand lies my history," a line from a poem by Rabbi Ben Ezra (according to Dr. Michael 
Sachs in his Die religiose Poesie der Juden in Spanien). If 7-12. The thought in these lines 
is summed up in "such hopes and fears" (1. 13), and the whole depends, grammatically, upon 
"remonstrate" (1. 15): "I do not remonstrate that youth, amassing flowers, sighed," etc. 
figured=\m!igmtA. H 16. doubt: cf. U. 8, 9; but here the word seems to be used also for all 
the restlessness and discontent of spirit which attend the striving to attain a high ideal, the 
"troubling" and " distiurbing" of the "clod" by a divine "spark." TJ 17. low kinds: the 
lower animals (cf. 11. 24, 30, 42); the reference is not to lower kinds of men, for man as man 
is being contrasted with the creatures below him. H 24. care: the subject of "irks." doubt: 
the subject of "frets." 

(390) 33- Contrast 1. 22. 1(40-42. Cf. "Saul," 1. 296. If 44. to suit: i. e., merely 
to suit, or fit, the flesh. If 45. lest arms and legs want play: i. e., merely to move the body. 
If 48. thy soul on its lone way: "The soul of man is called lonely because it is separated, 
during its union with the body, from the Universal Soul, into which it is again received when 
it departs from its earthly companion." — Rabbi Ben Ezra, in his commentary on the Psalms. 
If 49. gifts: the bodily powers; cf. U. 52, 53. Tf 50. the past: the past years of his own hfe, 
in which, by the use of his senses and brain, he had been getting impressions of the power and 
perfection in the works of God. If 54. once: in youth, the time of activity and acquisition 
of knowledge of the external world. If 55. once: in old age. If S7- Cf. "Saul," U. 239-304. 

(391) 60. I trust what Thou shall do: i. e., in old age, supplementing the more fleshly 
life of youth and manhood ("Thanks that I was a man," 1. 59) with the sphituality of age. 
If 61. The thought is continuous with that in the preceding line: "Maker, complete my nature 
by rounding it out on the spiritual side; there is need of it, for the attraction of fleshly pleas- 
lures is relatively too great." If 63. rest: rest from spiritual struggle. ^ 64. some prize: of 
a spiritual nature. ^ 66. brute: oxa own fleshly natures, gain most, as we did best: i. e., 
would we might gain the greatest and most pleasant retiuris when we live in the best and 
highest way. If 67. always: i. e., as we did in youth and manhood. If 71. Let us cry: i. e., 
m old age, when God shall have made us more spiritual, and the "rose-mesh" of the flesh 
holds us less firmly. If 74. To grant youth's heritage: i. e., to grant him, in old age, all that 
he has earned by the experience of hfe so far. If 76. Thence: from the "term," or temporary 
end, of life's struggle, which he has reached at the beginning of old age. If 79. thereupon: 
in old age. If 80. ere I be gone: at death. If 84. indue=^\i.t on. 



NOTES 583 

(392) 124, 125. Understand "whom" after "I" and "they." 

(393) iSi- patterns wheel: "But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, 
and thou our potter; and we are all the work of thy hand." — Isaiah 64:8. 

(394) 164. plastic=molding. T[ 168. impressed=mdlded. 

(395) Adam, Lilith, and Eve. According to a rabbinical legend, Adam had a wife, 
Lilith, before Eve. The poem has no connection with the legend except in the use of the 
names. 

Contemporary Criticism 

It is really high time that this sort of thing should, if possible, be stopped. Here is 
another book of madness and mysticism, another melancholy specimen of power wantonly 
wasted and talent deliberately perverted, another act of self-prostration before that demon of 
bad taste who now seems to hold in absolute possession the fashionable masters of our ideal 
literature. It is a strong case for the correctional justice of criticism, which has too long 

abdicated its proper functions Here is Robert Browning, for instance — ^no one can 

doubt that he is capable of better things— no one, while deploring the obscurities that deface 
the "Paracelsus" and the Dramatic Lyrics, can deny the less questionable quaUties which 
characterized those remarkable poems; but can any of his devotees be found to uphold his 
present elaborate experiment on the patience of the public? Take any of his worshipers 
you please — ^let him be "well up" in the transcendental poets of the day — take him fresh 
from Alexander Smith, or Alfred Tennyson's "Maud," or the "Mystic" of BaUey — and we 
will engage to find him at least ten passages in the first ten pages of Men and Women, some 
of which, even after profound study, he will not be able to construe at all, and not one of 
which wiU he be able to read oS at sight. .... 

And it is on this beauty of form, this exquisite perfection of style, that the Baileys and 
the Brownings would have us believe that they set small account, that they purposely and 
scornfully trample. We do not beUeve it. We believe that it is only because they are half- 
gifted that they are but half-inteUigible. Their mysticism is weakness — weakness writhing 
itself into contortions that it may ape the muscles of strength. Artistic genius, in its higher 
degrees, necessarily involves the power of beautiful self-expression. It is but a weak and 
watery sun that allows the fogs to hang heavy between the objects on which it shines and 
the eyes it would enlighten; the true day-star chases the mists at once, and shows us the 
world at a glance. 

Our main object has been to protest against what we feel to be the false teachings of a 
perverted school of art; and we have used this book of Mr. Browning's chiefly as a means of 
showing the extravagant lengths of absurdity to which the tenets of that school can lead a 
man of admitted powers. We should regret, however, in the pursuit of this object, to inflict 
injustice on Mr. Browning. This last book of his, like most of its predecessors, contains some 
undeniable beauties — subtle thoughts, graceful fancies, and occasionally a strain of music, 
which only makes the chaos of surrounding discords jar more harshly on the ear. The dra- 
matic scenes, "In a Balcony," are finely conceived and vigorously written; "Bishop Blou- 
gram's Apology" and "Cleon" are well worth reading and thinking over; and there is a 
certain grace and beauty in several of the minor poems. That which, on the whole, has 
pleased us most — really, perhaps, because we could read it off-hand — is "The Statue and 
the Bust." .... Why should a man who, with so little apparent labor, can write naturally 
and well, take so much apparent labor to write affectedly and ill? ... . Frequently the 
conclusion is almost irresistible that Mr. Browning's mysticism must be of malice prepense; 
on the whole, however, we are inclined to clear his honesty at the expense of his powers, 
and to conclude that he is obscure, not so much because he has the vanity to be thought ori- 
ginal, as because he lacks suflScient genius to make himself clear. — The Saturday Review, 
November 24, 1855, on Men and Women. 



584 ENGLISH POEMS 



ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 

(399) Qui Laborat, Orat. The title means, "Who Labors, Prays"; see 1. 20. f 26. 
Thebeatific supersensual sight: the "beatific vision" of mediaeval theology, or "blissful sight" 
of God by the eye of the soul, vouchsafed to angels and saints. 

(400) 'Y/j.vo'i'AviJ.voi. The title means, "A Hymn That Is Not aHymn," or "A Hymn 
Unsung." 

(401) Songs in Absence. Written during the poet's voyage to America or during his 
stay there. 

(402) "With Whom Is No Variableness, Neither Shadow of Turning." The 
title is taken from James 1:17. 

(402) "Perche Pensa? Pensando S'Invecchia." The 'title means, "Why Does 
He Think ? Through Thinking, One Grows Old." 

(403) The Shadow. The poem was not completed; the manuscript consists of 
several fragments, which are here separated from each other by stars. 1 s, 6. "I drew my 
sharp sword from my thigh, and dug a pit, as it were a cubit in length and breadth, and about 

it poured a drink-offering to all the dead But when I had besought the tribes of the 

dead with vows and prayers, I took the sheep and cut their throats over the trench, and the 
dark blood flowed forth, and lo, the spirits of the dead that be departed gathered them from 
out of Erebus." — Odyssey, XI. 24-37, Butcher and Lang's translation. 

(405) 71- on inquiry we must put no force: i. e., we must not check free inquiry. If 85. 
Butler: Bishop Joseph Butler, of the English Church, author of The Analogy of Religion, 
Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature (1736). ^ 86. Paley: Wil- 
liam Paley, an Anglican clergyman, author of Evidences of Christianity (1794). 

(406) 99-102. Cf. Matthew 19:20-22. 



MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Arnold's theory of poetry is contained in the following sentences from his essay on 
Wordsworth (1879): 

"Long ago, in speaking of Homer, I said that the noble and profound application of 
ideas to life is the most essential part of poetic greatness. I said that a great poet receives 
his distinctive character of superiority from his appUcation, under the conditions immutably 
fixed by the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth, from his application, I say, to his subject, 
whatever it may be, of the ideas 

On man, on Nature, and on human life, 

which he has acquired for himself Voltaire, with his signal acuteness, most truly 

remarked that 'no nation has treated in poetry moral ideas with more energy and depth 
than the English nation.' And he adds, 'There, it seems to me, is the great merit of the 
English poets.' Voltaire does not mean, by 'treating in poetry moral ideas,' the composing 
moral and didactic poems; — that brings us but a very little way in poetry. He means just 
the same thing as was meant when I spoke above 'of the noble and profound application of 
ideas to life'; and he means the application of these ideas under the conditions fixed for us 
by the laws of poetic beauty and poetic truth. If it is said that to call these ideas moral ideas 
is to introduce a strong and injurious limitation, I answer that it is to do nothing of the kind, 
because moral ideas are really so main a part of human life. The question, how to live, is 
itself a moral idea; and it is the question which most interests every man, and with which, 
in some way or other, he is perpetually occupied. A large sense is of course to be given to 
the term moral. Whatever bears upon the question, 'how to live,' comes under it. 

Nor love thy life, nor hate; but, what thou liv'st, 
Live well; how long or short, permit to Heaven. 



NOTES 585 

In those fine lines Milton utters, as every one at once perceives, a moral idea. Yes, but 
so too, when Keats consoles the forward-bending lover on the Grecian Urn, the lover arrested 
and presented in immortal relief by the sculptor's hand before he can kiss, with the line, 

Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair, 
he utters a moral idea. When Shakespeare says that 

We are such stuff 
As dreams are made of, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep, 

he utters a moral idea Morals are often treated in a narrow and false fashion; they 

are bound up with systems of thought and belief which have had thek day; they are fallen 
into the hands of pedants and professional dealers; they grow tiresome to some of us. We 
find attraction, at times, even in a poetry of revolt against them; in a poetry which might 
take for its motto Omar Kheyam's words, ' Let us make up in the tavern for the time which we 
have wasted in the mosque.' Or we find attractions in a poetry indifferent to them; in a 
poetry where the contents may be what they will, but where the form is studied and exquisite. 
We delude ourselves in either case; and the best cure for our delusion is to let our minds rest 
upon that great and inexhaustible word life, until we learn to enter into its meaning. A 
poetry of revolt against moral ideas is a poetry of revolt against life; a poetry of indifference 
towards moral ideas is a poetry of indifference towards life." 

(406) To A Friend. % 2. the old man: Homer. H 3. The Wide Prospect, and the 
Asian Fen. "The name 'Eurojje' (Evfitairri, the wide prospect) probably describes the appear- 
ance of the European coast to the Greeks on the coast of Asia Minor opposite. The name 
'Asia,' again, comes, it has been thought, from the muddy fens of the rivers of Asia Minor, 
such as the Cayster or Maeander, which struck the imagination of the Greeks living near 
them." — Arnold's note. ("Ao-ia is the feminine form of the Greek adjective meaning "marshy.") 
1i 4. Tmolus hill: a mountain range beginning near Smyrna, on the western coast of Asia 
Minor; Smyrna is one of the cities claiming to be the birthplace of Homer. K 5. he: Epic- 
tetus, the lame Stoic philosopher, who had been a slave; when Domitian, the son of Ves- 
pasian, banished the philosophers from Rome, in 89 a. d., Epictetus went to Nicopolis, in 
Epirus; his pupil, Arrian, compiled a manual of his doctrines. H 14. Colonus, and its child: 
Sophocles, who in his tragedy Oedipus at Colonus described the city and its grove of night- 
ingales, was born at Colonus in 495 b. c. 

(407) The Forsaken Merman. The poem is based on one form of an old legend 
found in the ballads of many nations: see the German baUad, "Die Schone Agnese"; and 
consuh English and Scottish Popular Ballads, edited by F. J. Child, I. 360, for an account 
of the various forms of the legend. 

(412) The Future. II36. Rebekah: see Genesis, chap. 24. 

(413) 45. Moses: see Exodus, chap. 3. H 57. shot=vaxy'mg (used chiefly of fabrics, 
as silks, so woven as to present changeable tints). 

(414) Lines Written IN Kensington Gardens. The gardens are in London. 

(415) The Scholar Gipsy. "There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford, 
who was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there, and at last to join himself to a com- 
pany of vagabond gipsies. Among these extravagant people, by the insinuating subtility 
of his carriage, he quickly got so much of their love and esteem as that they discovered to him 
their mystery. After he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade, there chanced to 
ride by a couple of scholars, who had formerly been of his acquaintance. They quickly 
spied out their old friend among the gipsies; and he gave them an account of the necessity 
which drove him to that kind of life, and told them that the people he went with were not 
such impostors as they were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind of learning among 
them, and could do wonders by the power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others; 
that himself had learned much of their art, and when he had compassed the whole secret, 



586 ENGLISH POEMS 



he intended, he said, to leave their company, and give the world an account of what he had 
learned." — J. Glanvil's Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661), quoted by Arnold as a note. 

(417) 79. Wychwood bowers: Wychwood Forest is about ten miles from Oxford. 

(418) 95. lasher— & dam in a river. 

(419) 129. Christ-Church hall: the hall, or dining-room, of Christ Church College, 
one of the largest colleges in Oxford University. 

(421) 209. her false friend'' s approach: Aeneas, during his visit to the lower world, 
saw and spoke to the shade of Dido, who had killed herself when he forsook her; "she, 
turned away, held her eyes fixed upon the ground" (Aeneid, VI. 469). 

(422) 239. tunnies: the tunny has been a favorite food-fish in the Mediterranean 
from the earliest times, f 244. Midlands Mediterranean. If 245. Syrtes: shoals off the 
northern coast of Africa, f 249. Iberians: the ancient inhabitants of Spain and Portugal; 
the peninsula was formerly called Iberia. 

(422) Yes, in the Sea of Life Enisled. From " Switzerland " (fifth section). 

(423) Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse. La Grande Chartreuse is the chief 
monastery of the Carthusian monks, founded in the eleventh century; it is situated in the 
Alps, in southeastern France. I4. Saint Laurent: 3, village. K 10. Dead Guier's: the 
river, Guiers Morte, a tributary of the Rhone. 

(425) 62. pilgrim-host: Carthusian monks on pilgrimage. 

^426) 99. i«'o/j5/i= pretenders to scientific knowledge, smatterers. 

(427) 135. .4etoto»= Grecian (AetoUa was a district of Greece). H 142. Spezzian bay: 
Shelley spent the last months of his hfe on the shores of the Gulf of Spezzia, on the north- 
western coast of Italy. H 146. Obermann. "The author of Obermann, Etienne Pivert 
de Senancour, has Uttle celebrity in France, his own country, and out of France he is almost 
unknown. But the profound inwardness, the austere sincerity, of his principal work, Ober- 
mann, the deUcate feeling for nature which it exhibits, and the melancholy eloquence of 
many passages of it, have attracted and charmed some of the most remarkable spirits of 

this century, such as George Sand and Sainte-Beuve Senancour was bom in 1770." — 

Arnold's note to his poem, "Stanzas in Memory of the Author of Obermann." 

(430) Palladium. At the tune of the buildmg of Troy, a stone image of Athene fell 
from heaven near the site of the new city, and Athene was accordingly taken as the special 
divinity of Troy. The heaven-sent image, called the Palladium (from "PaUas," another 
name for Athene), was given a shrine in the upper city; and the beUef became current that 
while it remained in the shrine the city could not be captured and destroyed. 1 1. Simois: 
one of the rivers of the Trojan plain, f 14. Xanthus: a river flowing through the plain before 
Troy, which was the battlefield of the Greeks and Trojans. 

(432) Kaiser Dead. ^ 2. Cobham: Arnold's home at this time. H 3. Farringford: 
Tennyson's home on the Isle of Wight. 1[ 5. Pen-bryn's bold bard: WiUiam Morris. K 12. 
In a note Arnold quotes the following lines from "Poor MaUie's Elegy," in which Burns, 
referring to himself as "Robin," laments the death of his pet ewe: 

Come, join the melancholius croon 

O' Robin's reed. 

11 20. Potsdam: a residence of the German emperors; cf. 1. 23. H 41. the Grand Old Man: 
Gladstone; in his later years he advocated home rule for Ireland and further extension of 
the suffrage, but never incited the masses against the classes. 

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 

(434) The Blessed Damozel. "I saw that Poe [in "The Raven"] had done the 
utmost it was possible to do with the grief of the lover on earth, and so I determined to reverse 
the conditions, and give utterance to the yearning of the loved one in heaven." — Rossetti, 
as reported by Hall Caine in his Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1882). "Such inspi- 



NOTES 587 

ration as is traceable to any source whatever belongs assumably to the pictures of those early 
Italian painters whom Rossetti had lovingly studied, and to domestic influences to which 
he yielded." — Joseph Knight, The Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetli (18&7). The poem was first 
published in The Germ, the short-lived periodical of the pre-Raphaelite movement; it was 
considerably revised in later editions; the first text is given in WilUam Sharp's Dante Gabriel 
Rossetti (1882). TI I. blessed: i. e., one of the blessed in heaven, damozel: an old form of 
"damsel" (cf. French "mademoiselle"). 

(435) 13- herseemed=it seemed to her (by analogy with "me seems," not uncommon 
in early English: "Me seemeth good." — Richard III, II. ii. 120). 

(438) Sister Helen. The poem was first pubMshed in the English edition of The 
Dilsseldorf Artists' Annual; the text was somewhat revised in the edition of 1870, and again 
in the edition of 1881, the stanzas about the Lady of Ewern (U. 204-45, 267-73) being 
added at the latter date. \ i. waxen man: " 'The Devil teacheth how to make pictures 
[images] of wax or clay, that, by roasting thereof, the persons that they bear the name of may be 
continually melted, or dried away by continual sickness,' is the dictum of King James." — 
Brand's Popular Antiquities. , 

(447) The House of Life. Sonnets i, 4, s, 19, 34, 49-52, 71-73, 92, loi. Rossetti 
prefixed to the series the following sonnet on the sonnet : 

A sonnet is a moment's monument,— 

Memorial from the soul's eternity 

To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be, 
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent, 
Of its own arduous fullness reverent: 

Carve it in ivory or in ebony. 

As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see 
Its flowering crest impearled and orient. 

A sonnet is a coin: its face reveals 

The soul; its converse, to what Power 'tis due — 

Whether for tribute to the august appeals 
Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue. 

It serve; or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath. 

In Charon's palm it pay the toU to Death. 

(453) Mary's Girlhood. The sonnet was first published in an art catalogue, and 
illustrated the poet's picture, "The Girlhood of the Virgin Mary." 

(453) For "A Venetian Pastoral." The sonnet was published in The Germ. 
H 14. Cf. Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," 11. 11-20. 

(454) Mary Magdalene. The sonnet was written for one of Rossetti's drawings. 
"In the drawing Mary has left a procession of revelers, and is ascending by a sudden impulse 
the steps of the house where she sees Christ. Her lover has followed her, and is trying to 
turn her back." — Rossetti's note, f 10, 11. See John 12:3; Matthew 26:6, 7; Luke 
8:2. 1(12,13. See Matthew 28 : 1-9. 

(454) For "The Wine of Circe." The picture is the well-known one by Edward Burne 
Jones. Cf. Homer's account of Circe: "In the forest glades they found the halls of Circe 
builded, of polished stone, in a place with wide prospect. And aU around the palace moun- 
tain-bred wolves and lions were roaming, whom she herself had bewitched with evil drugs 
that she gave them. Yet the beasts did not set on my men, but lo, they ramped about them 

and fawned on them, wagging their long tails So she led them in and set them upon 

chairs and high seats, and made them a mess of cheese and barley-meal and yellow honey 
with Pramnian wine, and mixed harmful drugs with the food to make them' utterly forget 
their own country. Now when she had given them the cup and they had drunk it off, presently 
she smote them with a wand, and in the styes of the swine she penned them. So they had 
the head and voice, the bristles and the shape of swine, but their mind abode even as of old. 
Thus were they penned there weeping." — Odyssey, X. 210-41, Butcher and Lang's translation. 



588 ENGLISH POEMS 



(455) John Keats. H 4. Castalian: Castalia was a fountain on Mount Parnassus, 
in Greece, sacred to the Muses. Latmos' steep: Latmos, a mountain in Asia Minor, was 
the scene of the fabled loves of Endymion and Diana; see Keats's "Endymion." 

(456) 10. awoke the moon's eclipse: an allusion to Keats's revival of the myth of Diana 
and Endymion. tii. "A little before he died he said that he 'felt the daisies growing 
over him.'" — lje:ig)\Y{.\xnt, Autobiography, chap. xvi. H 12, 13. not writ But rumoured in 
water: cf. the epitaph which Keats desired should be placed on his grave-stone, "Here 
lies one whose name was writ in water." 



CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 

(461) Youth Gone, and Beauty Gone. No. 14 in "Monna Innominata." 
(461) This Life is Full of Numbness and of Balk. No. 26 in "Later Life." 



WILLIAM MORRIS 

(462) An Apology. Prefixed to The Earthly Paradise. 

(463) 25. ivory gate: there were two gates to the realm of Morpheus, one of horn and 
one of ivory, untrue dreams issued through the latter. 

(463) The Death of Paris. In The Earthly Paradise, "September." Cf. Tenny- 
son's "Death of Oenone." The legend was a gradual growth. Sophocles (495-406 b. c.) 
in his Philocteies refers to the death of Paris by a poisoned arrow of Philoctetes. Lyco- 
phron, of the third century b. c, in his Alexandra makes Cassandra predict the conse- 
quences of Paris's elopement with Helen, including the death of Paris by the poisoned arrow; 
he represents Oenone as prevented by her father from curing Paris, and says that when Paris 
was dead she threw herself down from a tower and perished on his body. Apollodorus, 
who lived about 140 B.C., tells the story thus: "Now Hector married Andromache, the 
daughter of Eetion, and Alexander [Paris] married Oenone, the daughter of the river Kebren. 
She, having learned the art of prophecy from Rhea, warned Alexander not to sail away after 
Helen; but, failing to persuade him, she told him if he should be wounded to come to her, 
for she alone could heal him. He carried off Helen from Sparta; and when war was made 
upon Troy, and he was shot by Philoctetes with the bow of Heracles, he went up into Mount 
Ida to Oenone. But she, remembering her wrongs, refused to heal him. So Alexander 
died, while being carried back to Troy; and Oenone, changing her mind, brought the medi- 
cines to heal him, and when she found him dead she hanged herself." — Bibliotheca, III. xii. 6. 
TI II. Philoctetes: one of the Greeks at the siege of Troy, to which he brought some poisoned 
arrows that his friend Hercules had given him; he was famous as an archer, and had the bow 
of Hercules. 

(464) 35. worm's: the reference is to the hundred-headed Hydra, which Hercules 
slew. II 42. thats hining one: Paris; cf. 1. 16. 

(465) 58. leaguer: the besieging army. ^&o. the Spotless One: Athene, whose 
temple and statue were upon the citadel of Troy (Iliad, VI. 88, 297, 303); although aiding 
the Greeks throughout the war, she was still regarded by the Trojans as "protector of the 
city" (Iliad, VI. 305), and it was believed that Troy could not fall while her statue, the 
Palladium remained in its place. Cf . note on "Palladium," p. 536. 

(468) 176. mast-strewn: strewn with beech-nuts. 

(469) 214. dew-lapped=hiL\mg dew-laps, the pendulous skin under the throat of an 
ox (so called because it laps the dew). «ea<=cattle (O.E. "neat," cattle). Although Paris 
was the son of Priam, king of Troy, he was exposed on Mount Ida to die, because his mother 
had a dream, before his birth, that she had borne a firebrand which destroyed the city; he 
was saved and reared by a shepherd. 



NOTES 589 

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 

Swinburne expressed his poetic creed, in h''s essay "Wordsworth and Byron" (1884), 
as follows: 

"Mr. Arnold has at once a passion and a genius for definitions. It is doubtless good 
to have such a genius, but it is surely dangerous to have such a passion. All sane men 
must be willing to concede the truth of an assertion which he seems to fling down as a chal- 
lenge from the ethical critic to the aesthetic — that a school of poetry divorced from any moral 
idea is a school of poetry divorced from life. Even John Keats himself, except in his most 
hectic moments of sensuous or spiritual debility, would hardly, I should imagine, have under- 
taken to deny this. What may reasonably be maintained is a thesis very different from such 
a denial; namely, that a school of poetry subordinated to any school of doctrine, subju- 
gated and shaped and utilized by any moral idea to the exclusion of native impulse and spiritual 
instinct, wiU produce work fit to live when the noblest specimens of humanity are pro- 
duced by artificial incubation Before entering on the question, what criticism of 

life in any intelligible sense of the phrase may be derivable or deducible from the writings 
of Wordsworth or Byron, I would venture to put forward, by no means a counter theory or 
a rival definition to Mr. Arnold's theory or definition of poetry, but a simple postulate, or 
at least a simple assumption, on which I would rest my argument. If it be not admitted, 
there is an end of the matter: it would be absolute waste of time, for one who assumes it 
as indisputable, to enter into controversy with one who holds it as disputable, that the two 
primary and essential qualities of poetry are imagination and harmony; that where these 
quaUties are wanting there can be no poetry, properly so called; and that where these qual- 
ities are perceptible in the highest degree, there, even though they should be unaccompanied and 
unsupported by any other great quality whatever — even though the ethical or critical faculty 
should be conspicuous by its absence — there, and only there, is the best and highest poetry." 

(480) A Song in Time of Order, 1852. The second repubUc in France was over- 
thrown in 1851 by Louis Napoleon (nephew of Napoleon the Great), who became emperor 
in 1852. 

(481) 34. The old red: the flag of the revolution which had resulted in the establish- 
ment of a French republic in 1848. H 38. galley-bench: criminals were formerly condemned 
to the galleys, where the terrible labor at the oars soon broke down all but the strongest. 
Tf 39. Buonaparte the bastard: Napoleon Ill's title to the throne of France was disputed. 

(482) so. Cayenne: the capital of French Guiana, where pohtical prisoners were sent. 
the Austrian whips: Austria was a leader in the reaction against popular government, and 
had recently repressed revolutionary uprisings within her own Umits and in Italy, portions 
of which were subject to her. 

(482) When the Hounds of Spring Are on Winter's Traces. A chorus in Ata- 
lanta in Calydon, 11. 65-120. Tf 2. The Mother oj Months: Artemis, goddess of the moon. 
^ 5-8. King Tereus, of Thrace, pretending that his wife Procne was dead, married her sister, 
Philomela; when she discovered the truth, he cut out her tongue, but she wove the story 
into a robe and sent it to Procne; the sisters then took revenge upon Tereus by serving up 
to him at table Itys ("Itylus" is the diminutive form), son of Tereus and Procne; the gods 
finally changed all four into birds, Philomela becoming a nightingale, and Procne a swallow. 
Cf. Swinburne's "Itylus," 11. 55-60: 

O sister, sister, thy first-begotten ! 
The hands that cling and the feet that follow, 
The voice of the child's blood crying yet, 
Who hath remembered me ? Who hath forgotten ? 
Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow. 
But the world shall end when I forget. 

(483) 44. The maenad and the Bassasid: Bacchantes, or worshipers of Bacchus 
("Bassarid" is a patronymic from "Bassareus," a surname of Dionysus, or Bacchus). 



59° 



ENGLISH POEMS 



(488) Hertha. Hertha was a goddess of the ancient Germans, whom Tacitus says 
(Germania, xl) was "Mother Earth." But Swinburne takes the name for a vaguer and 
vaster divinity, like that of oriental thought, the AU, Absolute Being, the source, home, and 
element of all things. Cf. Emerson's "Brahma": 

If the red slayer think he slays, 

Or if the slain think he is slain, 
They know not well the subtle ways 

I keep, and pass, and turn again. 

Far or forgot to me is near; 

Shadow and sunlight are the same; 
The vanished gods to me appear; 

And one to me are shame and fame. 

They reckon ill who leave me out; 

When me they fly, I am the wings; 
I am the doubter and the doubt. 

And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. 

The strong gods pine for my abode. 

And pine in vain the sacred Seven; 
But thou, meek lover of the good ! 

Find me, and turn thy back on heaven. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

GENERAL WORKS 

History and Social Conditions. A History of England (1815-58), by Spencer Wal- 
pole, 6 vols. (Longmans, 1890). A History of Modern England (1846-95), by Herbert Paul, 
5 vols. (Macmillan, 1904-6). The Story of the People of England in the Nineteenth Century, 
by Justin McCarthy (Putnam, 1899). A History of Our Own Times (1837-1901), by 
Justin McCarthy, 5 vols. (Harper). Social England, ed. by H. D. Traill, Vols. 5, 6 (Put- 
nkm, 1896-97). 

Literature. Histoire de la litterature anglaise, by H. A. Taine, Vol. 4 (Paris, 1863); 
translation by H. van Laun, 1871 (Holt, 1896). A History of Nineteenth Century Literature, 
by George Saintsbury (Macmillan, 1896). The Literary History of England in the End of the 
Eighteenth and Beginning of the Nineteenth Century, by Margaret Oliphant (Macmillan, 1883 
new ed.). Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English Literature, 3 vols. (Lippincott, 1902-4, new 
ed.). The Encyclopaedia Britannica. Dictionary of National Biography. The Makers 
of English Poetry, by W. J. Dawson (Revell, 1906; rewritten form of Makers of Modern Eng- 
lish, 1890). Landscape in Poetry, by F. T. Palgrave (Macmillan, 1897). A History of English 
Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century, by H. A. Beers (Holt, 1901). On Poetic Interpreta- 
tion of Nature, by J. C. Shairp (Edinburgh, 1877). Aspects of Poetry, by J. C. Shairp (Claren- 
don Press, 1881): Poetic Style in Modern English Poetry. The Literature of the Georgian 
Era, by William Minto (Blackwood, 1894). Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature, 
by George Brandes, 6 vols. (Macmillan, 1901-5): Vol. 4, Naturalism in England (to the 
death of Byron). The Age of Wordsworth, by C H. Herford (BeU, 1894). The French 
Revolution and Literature, by Edward Dowden (Scribner, 1897). The French Revolution 
and the English Poets, by A. E Hancock (Holt, 1899). The Liberal Movement in English 
Literature, by W. J. Courthope (Murray, 1895). Studies in Literature, by Edward Dowden 
(Paul, 1878). Studies and Appreciations, by L. E. Gates (Macmillan, 1900): The Romantic 
Movement; The Return to Conventional Life. The Age of Tennyson, by Hugh Walker (Bell , 
1897). Transcripts and Studies, by Edward Dowden (Paul, 1888): Victorian Literature. The 
Victorian Age of English Literature, by Margaret Oliphant (Percival, 1892). Studies in Early 
Victorian Literature, by Frederic Harrison (Arnold, 1906) : Characteristics of Victorian Litera- 
ture Our Living Poets, by H. B. Forman (Tinsley, 1871). Victorian Poets, by E. C. Sted- 
man (Boston, 1875; Houghton, 1887, rev. ed.). Early Reviews of Great Writers (1786-1832), 
ed. by E. Stevenson (Scott, 1906). Edinburgh, Quarterly, and Blackwood Reviews, ed. by 
W. H. Griffin (Heath, in preparation; Belles Lettres series). Early Reviews of English Poets 
(1757-1855), ed. by J. L. Haney (Philadelphia, Egerton Press, 1904). 

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES 

Editions. The Poetical Works (Cassell, 1879). The Poetical Works, ed. by W. Tire- 
buck (Scott, 1887; Canterbury Poets ed., with Lamb and H. Coleridge). 

Criticisms. Quarterly Review, November, 1809. Biographia Literaria, by S. T. 
Coleridge, chap, i (London, 1817). 

SAMUEL ROGERS 

Editions. The Poetical Works, ed. by E. BeU (Bell, 1875; Aldine ed.). Poems, 
and Italy (Routledge, 1890; two volumes. Handy Volume ed.). 

Criticisms. Quarterly Review, March, 1813. Edinburgh Review, October, 1813; 
March, 1819. 

593 



594 ENGLISH POEMS 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 

Editions. The Poetical Works, 8 vols., ed. by William Knight (Paterson, 1882-86; 
Macmillaii). The Poetical Works, 7 vols., ed. by Edward Dowden (BeU, 1892-93; Aldine 
ed.). The Complete Poetical Works, ed. by John Morley (Macmillan, 1888; Globe ed.). The 
Complete Poems, ed. by Thomas Hutchinson (Oxford University Press, 1896). The Com- 
plete Poetical Works, ed. by A. J. George (Houghton, 1904; Cambridge ed.). Poems (selected) , 
ed. by Edward Dowden (Ginn, 1897; Athenaeum Press ed.). Lyrical Ballads, 1798, areprint 
ed. by Thomas Hutchinson (Duckworth, 1898). Poems, 1807, a reprint, ed. by Thomas 
Hutchinson (Nutt, 1897). The Prose Works, 3 vols., ed. by A. B. Grosart (Moxon, 1876). 
The Prose Works, 2 vols., ed. by William Knight (Macmillan, 1896). Wordsworth's Guide 
to the Lakes, 1835, 3- reprint, ed. by Ernest de Selincourt (Oxford University Press, 1906). 
Wordsworth's Prefaces (with Coleridge's chapters on Wordsworth in Biographia Literaria), 
ed. by A. J. George (Heath, 1906; Belles Lettres series). Wordsworth's Literary Criticism, 
ed. by Nowell Smith (Frowde, 1906). 

Biography. The Life of WiUiam Wordsworth, 3 vols., by WLUiam Knight (Paterson, 
1889; Macmillan). Wordsworth, by F. W. H. Myers (Macmillan, 1881; English Men of 
Letters series). The Prelude, by William Wordsworth. Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, 
2 vols., ed. by William Knight (Macmillan, 1897). Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence 
of H. C. Robinson, ed. by Thomas Sadler (Macmillan, 1869; with additions, 1872). My 
First Acquaintance with Poets, by William Hazlitt, in Literary Remains (Vol. 12, in his col- 
lected works, Dent, 1902-4). The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. by his 
son (London, 1849-50). Literary and Lake Reminiscences (1839), chaps, iii-v, by Thomas 
DeQuincey (Vol. 2, in the new edition of DeQuincey, by David Masson; Black, 1889-90). 
Wordsworthiana, ed. by William Knight (Macmillan, 1889): Reminiscences of Wordsworth 
amongst the Peasantry of Westmoreland. Yesterdays with Authors, by J. T. Fields (Houghton, 
1872). La Jeunesse de WiUiam Wordsworth, by Emile Legouis (Paris, 1896); translated by 
J. W. Matthews, The Early Life of WiUiam Wordsworth (Dent, 1897). Studies of a Biog- 
rapher, by Leslie Stephen (Putnam, 1899); Wordsworth's Youth. Homes and Haunts of the 
British Poets, by WUUam Howitt (Routledge, 1894)- Literary Associations of the English 
Lakes, by H. D. Rawnsley (MacLehose, 1894; Macmillan). 

Criticisms. Matthew Arnold: Essays m Criticism, second series (MacmiUan, 1888; 
the essay on Wordsworth, 1879). Walter Bagehot: Literary Studies (Longmans, 1878-79). 
George Brimley: Essays (MacmiUan, 1858; reissue, 1882). S. A. Brooke: Theology in the 
EngUsh Poets (London, 1874). John Burroughs: Fresh Fields (Houghton, 1885). Edward 
Caird: Essays on Literature and PhUosophy (MacLehose, 1892). R. W. Church: Dante 
and Other Essays (MacmiUan, 1888). Thomas De Qumcey: On Wordsworth's Poetry, 1845 
(in Vol. II of Masson 's new edition of De Quincey). Aubrey De Vere; Essays, chiefly on 
Poetry (MacmUlan, 1887). Edinburgh Review: October, 1807, Poems; November, 1814, 
The Exciursion; October, 1815, The White Doe of Rylstone; November, 1822, Memorials of 
a Tour on the Continent. R. H. Hutton: Essays, Theological and Literary (Strahan, 1871). 
H.N.Hudson: Studies m Wordsworth (Little, 1884). WUUam Knight: Studies in Philosophy 
and Literature (Nature as Interpreted by Wordsworth) (Edinburgh, 1868). J. R. LoweU: 
Among My Books, second series, 1876 (Literary Essays, Vol. 4, in his coUected works; Hough- 
ton); Wordsworth, 1884 (Literary and PoUtical Addresses, in his collected works). L. Mag- 
nus: A Primer of Wordsworth (Methuen, 1897). David Masson: Wordsworth, SheUey, Keats 
(MacmiUan, 1874). John Morley: Studies in Literature (MacmUlan, 1891). Walter Pater: 
Appreciations (MacmUlan, 1889; the essay on Wordsworth, 1874). Quarterly Review: October, 
1814, The Excursion (by Charles Lamb); October, 1815, Poems, and The White Doe of Ryl- 
stone. Walter Raleigh: Wordsworth (Arnold, 1903). Edmond Scherer: Essays on EngUsh 
Literature (translated by George Saintsbury from Etudes critiques) (Scribner, 1891). J. C. 
Shairp: Studies in Poetry and PhUosophy (Edinburgh, 1868; Houghton). Leslie Stephen: 
Hours in a Library, Vol. 2 (Wordsworth's Ethics) (Smith, 1874-79; Putnam, 1892, new ed. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 595 

with additions). A.C.Swinburne: Miscellanies (Chatto, 1886). W. H. White : An Exam- 
ination of the Charge of Apostasy against Wordsworth (Longmans, 1898). G. E. Woodberry : 
Studies in Letters and Life (Houghton, 1890); The Torch (McClure, 1905). Wordsworthiana, 
a selection from papers read to the Wordsworth Society (papers by Ainger, Arnold, De Vere, 
Dowden, Noel, and others) (MacmUlan, 1889). See also above, under "General Works, Litera- 
ture," Saintsbury, Oliphant, Chambers, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dawson, Palgrave, Beers, 
Minto, Brandes, Herford, Dowden, Hancock, Courthope, Gates. 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 

Editions. Complete Works, 7 vols., ed. by W. G. T. Shedd (1858; reissue. Harper, 
1884). The Poetical Works, ed. by J. D. Campbell (Macmillan, 1893; Globe ed.). The 
Poetry, ed. by Richard Garnett (Scribner, 1898; Muses' Library ed.). The Poetical Works, 
2 vols., ed. by T. Ashe (Bell, 1885; Aldine ed.). Prose Works, ed. by T. Ashe, 6 vols. (Bell, 
1885; Bohn ed.). Table Talk, ed. by Henry Morley (Routledge, 1883; Morley's Universal 
Library ed.). Anima Poetae, from Coleridge's unpublished notebooks, ed. by E. H. Coleridge 
(Houghton, 1895). 

Biography. S. T. Coleridge und die englische Romantik, by Alois Brandl (Berlin, 1886) ; 
translation by Lady Eastlake, S. T. Coleridge and the English Romantic School (Murray, 1887). 
Coleridge, by H. D. Traill (MacmiUan, 1884; English Men of Letters series). Life of S. T. 
Coleridge, by Hall Caine (Scott, 1887; Great Writers series). S. T. Coleridge, a Narrative 
of the Events of His Life, by J. D. Campbell (Macmillan, 1894). (See also Campbell's intro- 
duction to his edition of Coleridge.) Early Recollections, chiefly relating to the late S. T. Cole- 
ridge, by Joseph Cottle (London, 1837). The Life of S. T. Coleridge, by James GiUman (Lon- 
don, 1838; only one volume published). Letters of S. T. Coleridge, ed. by E. H. Coleridge 
(Heinemann, 1895; Houghton). Biographia Literaria, by S. T. Coleridge, 1817 (Bell, 1885; 
Bohn ed.). Coleridge and Opium-Eating (1845), by Thomas De Quincey (Vol. s, in Masson's 
new edition of De Quincey's works). The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, chap, xvi (London, 
1850). The Life of John Sterling (1851), by Thomas Carlyle, chap. viii. See also above 
under "Wordsworth, Biography," Dorothy Wordsworth, Robioson, Southey, De Quincey 
(Literary and Lake Reminiscences, chap, ii), Hazlitt. 

Criticisms. Peter Bayne: Essays in Biography and Criticism, second series (Boston, 
1858). Blackwood's Magazine: October, 1817, Biographia Literaria; October, 1819, The 
Lake School of Poets; October, 1834, Coleridge's Poetical Works. Edward Dowden: New 
Studies in Literature (Coleridge as a Poet) (Houghton, 1895). Edinburgh Review: September, 
1816, Christabel; August, 181 7, Biographia Literaria. John Forster: Great Teachers (Red- 
way, 1898). Richard Garnett: Essays of an ex-Librarian (Heinemann, 1 901). J.R.Lowell: 
Democracy and Other Addresses (Houghton, 1887; in Latest Literary and PoKtical Addresses, 
in the collected edition of his works). Walter Pater: Appreciations (Macmillan, 1889; the 
essay on Coleridge, 1865 and 1880). Quarterly Review: April, 1814, Remorse (also a general 
discussion of Coleridge's poetry). J. M. Robertson: New Essays towards a Critical Method 
(Lane, 1897). J. C. Shairp: Studies in Poetry and Philosophy (Edinburgh, 1868; Houghton). 
Leslie Stephen: Hours in a Library, Vol. 3 (Smith, 1874-79: Putnam, 1892, new ed., with 
additions). A.C.Swinburne: Essays and Studies (Chatto, 1875). William Watson: Excur- 
sions ia Criticism (Coleridge's Supernatiiralism) (Macmillan, 1893). G. E. Woodberry: 
Studies in Letters and Life (Houghton, 1890); Makers of Literature (Macmillan, 1900). 
See also above, imder "General Works, Literature," Saintsbury, Oliphant, Chambers, 
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dictionary of National Biography, Dawson, Palgrave, Beers, 
Brandes, Minto, Herford, Dowden, Hancock, Courthope, Gates, Stevenson, Griffin, 
Haney. 

Bibliography. By J. P. Anderson, in Caine's Life of Coleridge. J. L. Haney: A 
Bibliography of S. T. Coleridge (privately printed, 1903). 



596 ENGLISH POEMS 



ROBERT SOUTHEY 

Editions. The Poetical Works, collected by himself, lo vols. (Longmans, 1837-38). 
Poems, chosen and arranged by Edward Dowden (MacmiUan, 1895; Golden Treasury ed.). 
Selections from the Poems, ed. by S. R. Thompson (Scott, 1888; Canterbury Poets ed.). 
Ballads and Other Poems, ed. by C. J. Battersby (Blackie, 1899). 

Biography. The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. by his son (London, 
1849-50). Southey, by Edward Dowden (MacmiUan, 1876; English Men of Letters series). 
Literary and Lake Reminiscences, by Thomas De Quincey, chaps, iv, v (Vol. 2, in Masson's 
new edition of De Quincey). See also above, imder "Wordsworth, Biography," De Quincey, 
Robinson. 

Criticisms. Blackwood's Magazine, March and April, 1851. Edinburgh Review: 
October, 1802, Thalaba; October, 1805, Madoc; February, 1811, The Curse of Kehama; 
June, 1815, Roderick; March, 1817, Wat Tyler; July, 1821, A Vision of Judgment. Quarterly 
Review: February, i8ir. The Curse of Kehama; April, 1815, Roderick. George Saints- 
bury: Essays in English Literature, second series (Dent, 1895). Leslie Stephen: Studies of 
a Biographer, Vol. 4 (Southey's Letters) (Putnam, 1902). See also above, under "General 
Works, Literature," Saintsbury, Oliphant, Dictionary of National Biography, Minto, Dawson. 

THOMAS CAMPBELL 

Editions. The Poetical Works, ed. by W. A. HiU, with a sketch of Campbell's Ufa by 
W. Allingham (Bell, 1875; Aldine ed.). The Poetical Works, ed. by W. M. Rossetti (London 
and Edinburgh, 1871; the same in Moxon's Popular Poets series, 1880). Poems (Scott, 1885; 
Canterbury Poets ed.). Poems, selected by L. Campbell (MacmiUan, 1904: Golden Treasury 
ed.). 

Biography. The Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell, by WiUiam Beattie (Moxon, 
1849). 

Criticisms. Blackwood's Magazine: January, 1825, Theodoric. Edinburgh Review: 
April, 1809, Gertrude of Wyoming; January, 1825, Theodoric. Quarterly Review: May, 
1809, Gertrude of Wyoming. George Saintsbury: Essays in English Literature, second series 
(Dent, 1905). See also above, under 'General Works, Literature," Saintsbury, Oliphant, 
Chambers, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dawson, Minto. 

WALTER SCOTT 

Editions. The Complete Poetical Works, with introductions and notes by Andrew 
Lang, 6 vols. (Estes, 1902). The Poetical Works, with the author's introductions, notes, and 
appendices, together with the annotations of J. G. Lockhart and others, 4 vols. (Oliphant, 1898; 
Lippincott, 1900). The Poems, ed. by J. Dennis, s vols. (Bell, 1892; Aldine ed.). The 
Poetical Works, ed. by William Mmto, 2 vols. (Black, 1887-88). The Complete Poetical 
Works, ed. by H. E. Scudder (Houghton, 1900; Cambridge ed.). The Poems, ed. by J. L. 
Robertson (Oxford University Press, 1906). Poetical Works (not complete), ed. by F. T. 
Palgrave (MacmQlan, 1866; Globe ed.). 

Biography. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, by J. G. Lockhart, 1837 (Hough- 
ton, 1901; new ed.). Sir Walter Scott, by R. H. Hutton (MacmiUan, 1878; English Men 
of Letters series). Life of Sir Walter Scott, by C. D. Yonge (Scott, 1888; Great Writers series). 
The Journal of Sir Walter Scott (1825-32), ed. by David Douglas, 2 vols. (Harper, 1900). 
FamiUai Letters of Sir Walter Scott, ed. by David Douglas, 2 vols. (Douglas, 1894; Houghton). 
Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, by Washington Irving (London, 1850). Studies of a Biog- 
rapher, by Leslie Stephen, Vol. 2 (The Story of Scott's Ruin) (Putnam, 1899). The Homes 
and Haunts of Sir Walter Scott, by G. S. Napier (MacLehose, 1897; MacmUlan). The Scott 
Country, by S. R. Crockett (MacmiUan, 1902). 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 597 

Criticisms. Blackwood's Magazine, April, 1817. Thomas Carlyle: Critical and Mis- 
cellaneous Essays, Vol. 3 (the essay on Scott, in London and Westminster Review, 1838). 
Edinburgh Review : April, 1805, The Lay of the Last Minstrel; April, 1808, Marmion; August, 
1810, The Lady of the Lake; August, 1811, The Vision of Don Roderick; February, 1815, 
The Lord of the Isles. John Hay: Addresses (Sir Walter Scott, address at the unveiling of 
the bust of Scott in Westminster Abbey, 1897) (Century Co., 1906). Victor Hugo: Litterature 
et Philosophie (Paris, 1834). Andrew Lang: Essays in Little (Scribner, 1891). F. T. 
Palgrave: Biographical and Critical Memoir, prefixed to his edition of Scott. Quarterly 
Review: May, 1810, The Lady of the Lake; October, 1811, The Vision of Don Roderick; 
December, 1812, Rokeby; July, 1815, The Lord of the Isles. John Ruskin: Modem Painters, 
Part IV, chap, xvi (Scott's descriptions of nature) (London, 1856). J. C. Shairp: Aspects of 
Poetry (The Homeric Spirit in Walter Scott) (Clarendon Press, 1881). Leslie Stephen: Hours 
in a Library, Vol. i (Smith, 1874-79). A. C. Swinburne: Studies in Prose and Poetry (The 
Journal of Sir Walter Scott) (Chatto, 1897). Arthur Symons: Was Sir Walter Scott a Poet ? 
(Atlantic Monthly, November, 1904). See also above, under "General Works, Literature," 
Salntsbury, Oliphant, Chambers, Dictionary of National Biography, Dawson, Palgrave, 
Beers, Brandes, Minto, Herford, Gates. 

Bibliography. By J. P. Anderson, in Yonge's Life of Scott. 

GEORGE GORDON BYRON 

Editions. The Works: Poetry, ed. by E. H. Coleridge, 7 vols.; Letter and Journals, 
ed. by R. E. Prothero, 6 vols. (Murray, 1898-1904). The Poetical Works, ed. with a memoir 
by E. H. Coleridge (Murray, 1906; Scribner). The Complete Poetical Works, ed. by 
P. E. More (Houghton, 1906; Cambridge ed.). The Poems (Oxford University Press, 
1896). ChUde Harold, ed. by H. F. Tozer (Clarendon Press, 1885). Childe Harold, ed. by 
W. J. Rolfe (Houghton, 1885). 

Biography. The Life of Lord Byron, with His Letters and Journals, and Illustrative 
Notes, by Thomas Moore (Murray, 1830). Lord Byron, a Biography, with a Critical Essay 
on His Place in Literature, by Karl Elze (Murray, 1872; translation of the German edition 
of 1870). Byron, by John Nichol (MacmUlan, 1880; English Men of Letters series). Life 
of Lord Byron, by Roden Noel (Scott, 1890; Great Writer series). Letters of Lord Byron 
(1804-13), ed. by W. E. Henley (MacmUlan, 1897). Journal of the Conversations of Lord 
Byron, by Thomas Medwin (London, 1824). Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron from 
1808 to 1814, by R. C. Dallas (London, 1824). A Narrative of Lord Byron's Last Journey 
to Greece, by Pietro Gamba (London, 1825). Lord Byron and Some of His Contemporaries, 
by Leigh Hunt (London, 1828). The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, chaps, xv-xix (London, 
1850). Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron, by E. J. Trelawny (London, 1858; 
reissue, Frowde, 1906). Lord Byron juge par les temoins de sa vie, by Countess Guiccioli 
(Paris, 1868); translation by H. E. H. Jerningham, My Recollections of Lord Byron and 
Those of Eye- Witnesses of His Life (London, 1869). Byron and the Greek Patriots (Harper's 
Magazine, February, 1894). See also above, under "Wordsworth, Biography," Robinson. 

Criticisms. Matthew Arnold: Essays in Criticism, second series (MacmiUan, 1888). 
Blackwood's Magazine: June, 1817, Manfred; November, 1817, The Lament of Tasso; 
May, 1818, Childe Harold, Canto IV; July, 1819, Mazeppa; August, 1819, Don Juan; 
April, 1821, The Doge of Venice; December, 1822, Werner; January, 1823, Heaven and 
Earth; July, 1823, Don Juan; February, 1825, Byron's Character and Writings. George 
Brandes: Shelley und Lord Byron (Leipzig, 1894). G. K. Chesterton: Varied Types 
(The Optimism of Byron) (Dodd, 1903). J. C. Collins: Studies in Poetry and Criti- 
cism (The Collected Works of Lord Byron) (Bell, 1905; this essay appeared in the 
Quarterly Review, April, 1905). Edinburgh Review: January, 1808, Hours of Idleness; 
February, 1812, Childe Harold, Cantos I and II; July, 1813, The Giaour; April, 1814, The 



598 ENGLISH POEMS 



Corsair, The Bride of Abydos; December, 1816, Childe Harold, Canto III, The Prisoner 
of Chillon, etc.; August, 1817, Manfred; February, 1818, Beppo; June, 1818, Childe Harold, 
Canto IV; July, 1821, Marino Faliero, The Prophecy of Dante; February, 1822, Sardanapalus, 
The Two Foscari, Cain. Goethe: Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe, translated from 
the German by S. M. Fuller (Boston, 1839). W. E. Henley: Views and Reviews (Scribner, 
1890). T. B. Macaulay: Critical, Historical, and Miscellaneous Essays (Moore's Life of 
Lord Byron; in Edinburgh Review, June, 1831). P. E. More: The Wholesome Revival of 
Byron (Atlantic Monthly, December, 1898); Shelburne Essays, third series (A Note on 
Byron's Don Juan) (Putnam, 1906). John Morley: Critical Miscellanies, first series (Mac- 
millan, 1871). J. F. A. Pyre: Byron in Our Day (Atlantic Monthly, April, 1907). Quar- 
terly Review: March, 1812, Childe Harold, Cantos I and II; January, 1814, The Giaour, 
The Bride of Abydos; July, 1814, The Corsair, Lara; October, 1816, Childe Harold, Canto 
III, The Prisoner of Chillon, etc.; April, 1818, Childe Harold, Canto IV; July, 1822, Marino 
Faliero, Sardanapalus, The Two Foscari, Cain. C.-A. Sainte-Beuve : Chateaubriand et 
son groupe litt^raire sous I'Empire, Vol. i, chap, xv (Paris, 1848-49). Otto Schmidt: Rous- 
seau und Byron (Oppeln, 1890). A. C. Swinburne: Essays and Studies (Chatto, 1875); 
Miscellanies (Chatto, 1886). G. E. Woodberry: Studies in Letters and Life (Houghton, 
1890). See also above, under "General Works, Literature," Taine, Saintsbury, Oliphant, 
Chambers, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dictionary of National Biography, Dawson, Palgrave, 
Beers, Brandes, Minto, Herford, Dowden, Hancock, Courthope, Gates, Stevenson, Griffin, 
Haney. 

Bibliography. By J. P. Anderson, in Noel's Life of Byron. By E. H. Coleridge, in 
his edition of Byron's poems. Vol. 7. 

THOMAS MOORE 

Editions. Complete Poetical Works, collected by himself, with explanatory notes 
and biographical introduction, 2 vols. (Crowell, 1895). The Poetical Works, ed. by W. M. 
Rossetti (Moxon, i88o; Popular Poets ed.). The Poetical Works (Bliss, 1897; Apollo 
Poets ed.). Poems, selected by C. L. Falkiner (Macmillan, 1903; Golden Treasury ed.). 

Biography. Thomas Moore, His Life and Works, by A. J. Symington (Black, 1880). 

Criticisms. Blackwood's Magazine: June, 1817, Lalla Rookh; May, 1818, The 
Fudge Family in Paris; October, 1818; January, 1822, Irish Melodies; January, 1823, 
The Loves of the Angels; May, 1852. Edinburgh Review: July, 1803, translation of Ana- 
creon; July, 1806; November, 1817, LaUa Rookh. Quarterly Review: June, 1812, and 
October, 1822, Irish Melodies. George Saintsbmry: Essays in English Literature, first 
series (Percival, 1890). See also above, under "General Works, Literature," Chambers, 
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dictionary of National Biography, Beers, Minto. 

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 

Editions. The Poetical Works, 4 vols.. The Prose Works, 4 vols., ed. by H. B. Forman 
(Reeves, 1876-80). The Poetical Works, ed. by R. H. Shepherd, 3 vols. (Chatto, 1888). 
The Complete Poetical Works, ed. by G. E. Woodberry, 4 vols. (Houghton, 1892). The 
Poetical Works, ed. by H. B. Forman, s vols. (MacmUlan, 1892; Aldine ed.). 

The Poetical Works, ed. by Edward Dowden (Macmillan, 1890; Globe ed.). The 
Complete Poetical Works, ed. by G. E. Woodberry (Houghton, 1901 ; Cambridge ed.). Select 
Poems, ed. by W. J. Alexander (Ginn, 1898; Athenaeum Press ed.). Essays and Letters, 
ed. by Ernest Rhys (Scott, 1886; Camelot Classics ed.). A Defense of Poetry, ed. by A. S. 
Cook (Ginn, 1890). An Apology for Poetry, ed. by L. Winstanley (Heath, in preparation; 
Belles Lettres series, with Browning's Essay on Shelley). Original Poetry by Victor and 
Cazire [P. B. Shelley and Elizabeth Shelley] (1810), a reprint, ed. by Richard Gamett (Lane, 
1897). Notes on the MS. volume of Shelley's Poems in the Library of Harvard College, 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 599 

by G. E. Woodberry [with a facsimUe of the MS. of To a Skylark] (issued by the Library of 
Harvard University, 1889). 

Biography. The Life of P. B. Shelley, by Edward Dowden, 2 vols. (Paul, 1886; Lip- 
pincott). Shelley, by J. A. Symonds (Macmillan, 1878; English Men of Letters series). 
Life of P. B. Shelley, by William Sharp (Scott, 1887; Great Writers series). P. B. SheUey, 
Poet and Pioneer, a Biographical Study, by H. S. Salt (Reeves, 1896). Memoirs of P. B. 
Shelley, by T. L. Peacock (London, 1875; reprinted from Eraser's Magazine, 1858-60). 
The Life of P. B. SheUey, by T. J. Hogg (Moxon, 1858; reissue, Dutton, 1896). Shelley 
Memorials, ed. by Lady SheUey (King, 1859). WiUiam Godwin, His Friends and Con- 
temporaries, by C. K. Paiil (London, 1876). See also above, under "Byron, Biography," 
Trelawny, Hunt. 

Criticisms. Matthew Arnold: Essays in Criticism, second series (MacmiUan, 1888). 
Walter Bagehot: Literary Studies (Longmans, 1878-79). Blackwood's Magazine: January, 
1819, The Revolt of Islam; June, 1819, Rosalind and Helen; November, 1819, Alastor; 
September, 1820, Prometheus Unbound; December, 1821, Adonais. Robert Browning: 
An Essay on SheUey, 1852 (SheUey Society's Papers, London, 1888; in the Cambridge edition 
of Browning). Aubrey De Vere: Essays, chiefly on Poetry (MacmiUan, 1887). Edin- 
burgh Review: July, 1824, posthumous poems. Joseph Forster: Great Teachers (Redway, 
1898). Edmund Gosse: Questions at Issue (Appleton. 1893). R. H. Hutton: Essays 
Theological and Literary (Strahan, 1871). Andrew Lang: Letters to Dead Authors (Scribner, 
1893). David Masson: Wordsworth, SheUey, Keats (MacmiUan, 1874). Quarterly Review: 
AprU, 1819, The Revolt of Islam; October, 1821, Prometheus Unbound. J. M. Robertson: 
New Essays towards a Critical Method (Lane, 1897). H. S. Salt: A SheUey Primer (SheUey 
Society's Papers, London, 1887). J. C. Shairp: Aspects of Poetry (SheUey as a Lyric Poet) 
(Clarendon Press, 1881). Shelley Society's Papers (London, 1886-). LesUe Stephen: 
Hours in a Library, Vol. 3 (Godwin and Shelley) (Smith, 1874-79). A. C. Swinburne: 
Essays and Studies (Notes on the Text of Shelley) (Chatto, 1875). John Todhunter: 
A Study of SheUey (Paul, 1880). W. P. Trent: Authority of Criticism (Scribner, 1899). 
G. E. Woodberry: Studies in Letters and Life (Houghton 1890); Makers of Litera- 
ture (MacmUlan, 1900); The Torch (McClure, 1905). See also above, under "General 
Works, Literature," Saintsbury, Oliphant, Chambers, Encyclopaedia Britaimica, Dic- 
tionary of National Biography, Dawson, Palgrave, Beers, Brandes, Minto, Herford, Dowden, 
Hancock, Courthope, Gates, Stevenson, GrLEn, Haney. 

Concordance. F. S. EUis: A Lexical Concordance to the Poetical Works of P. B. 
SheUey (Quaritch, 1892). 

Bibliography. H. B. Forman: The Shelley Library, an Essay in Bibliography (Reeves, 
1886). By J. P. Anderson, in Sharp's Life of SheUey. 

LEIGH HUNT 

Editions. The Poetical Works (Moxon, 1883; Popular Poets ed.). Poems (selected), 
ed. by J. H. Panting (Scott, 1889; Canterbury Poets ed., with Hood's poems). Essays 
(selected), ed. by Arthur Symons (Scott, 1887; Camelot Classics ed.). Essays (selected), 
ed. by Arthiu- Seymour (Dutton, 1904). 

Biography. Life of Leigh Hunt, by Cosmo Monkhouse (Scott, 1893; Great Writers 
series). The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt (London, 1850). 

Criticisms. Blackwood's Magazine: October, November, 1817, and July, 1818, On 
the Cockney School of Poetry; October, 18 19, FoUage, Poems Original and Translated. 
Edinburgh Review: June, 1816, The Story of Rimini. Quarterly Review: January, 1816, 
The Story of Rimini; May, 1818, FoUage. George Saintsbury: Essays m English Litera- 
ture, first series (Percival, 1890). See also above, imder "General Works, Literature," 
Saintsbury, Chambers, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dictionary of National Biography. 

Bxbliogkaphy. By J. P. Anderson, in Monkhouse's Life of Hunt. 



6oo ENGLISH POEMS 



JOHN KEATS 

Editions. The Poetical Works and Other Writings, ed. by H. B. Forman, 4 vols. 
(Reeves, 1883). The Complete Works, ed. by H. B. Forman, s vols. (CroweU, 1901). The 
Poems, with an introduction by R S. Bridges (BuUen, 1896; Scribner; Muses' Library ed.). 
The Complete Poetical Works and Letters, ed. by H. E. Scudder (Houghton, 1899; Cambridge 
ed.). Poetical Works (MacmiUan, 1902; Globe ed.). Poetical Works, ed. by F. T. Pal- 
grave (Macmillan, 1884; Golden Treasury ed.). Letters, ed. by Sidney Colvin (MacmUlan, 
1891). 

Biography. Keats, by Sidney Colvin (MacmiUan, 1887; English Men of Letters 
series). Life of John Keats, by W. M. Rossetti (Scott, 1887; Great Writers series). Life, 
Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats, ed. by R. M. Milnes (Lord Houghton) (London, 
1848; rev. ed., 1867). Recollections of Writers, by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke (Lon- 
don, 1878). Recollections of John Keats, by C. C. Clarke (The Gentleman's Magazine, 
February, 1874). Keats in Hampstead, by Kenyon West (Century Magazine, October, 
1895). See also above, under "Byron, Biography," Hunt. 

Criticisms. Matthew Arnold: Essays in Criticism, second series (MacmiUan, 1888). 
Blackwood's Magazine: August, 1818, On the Cockney School of Poetry (Endymion). R. S. 
Bridges: Keats, a Critical Essay (privately printed, 1895). Aubrey De Vere: Essays, chiefly 
on Poetry (MacmiUan, 1887). Edmund Gosse: Critical Kit-Kats (Keats in 1894) (Dodd, 
1896). Edinbiu-gh Review: August, 1820, Endymion, Lamia, etc. Andrew Lang: Letters 
on Literature (Longmans, 1889). J. R. LoweU: Among My Books, second series (Keats, 
1854) (Literary Essays, Vol. i, in LoweU's collected works). H. W. Mabie: Essays in Literary 
Interpretation (Dodd, 1892). David Masson: Wordsworth, SheUey, Keats (MacmiUan, 1874) 
P. E. More: Shelburne Essays, fourth series (Putnam, 1906). Quarterly Review: April, 
1818, Endymion. J. M. Robertson: New Essays towards a Critical Method (The Art of 
Keats) (Lane, 1897). E. C. Stedman: Keats (Century Magazine, February, 1884). WOUam 
Watson: Excursions in Criticism (Keats's letters) (MacmUlan, 1893). Henry Van Dyke: 
The Influence of Keats (Century Magazine, October, 1895). G. E. Woodberry: Studies in 
Letters and Life (On the Promise of Keats) (Houghton, 1890). See also above, imder "Gen- 
eral Works, Literature," Saintsbury, OHphant, Chambers, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
Dictionary of National Biography, Dawson, Palgrave, Beers, Brandes, Minto, Herford, 
Courthope, Gates, Stevenson, Griffin, Haney. 

Bibliography. By J. P. Anderson, in Rossetti's Life of Keats. 

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR 

Editions. Works, ed. by John Forster, 8 vols. (Chapman, 1874-76). Works, ed. by 
C. G. Crump, 10 vols. (Dent, 1891-93; Poems, Dialogues in Verse, and Epigrams, 2 vols). 
Letters and Other Unpublished Writings, ed. by Stephen Wheeler (Bentley, 1897). Letters, 
Private and PubUc, ed. by Stephen Wheeler (Duckworth, 1899). Selections (verse and prose), 
ed. by Sidney Colvin (MacmiUan, 1882; Golden Treasiury ed.). Selections (mostly prose), 
ed. by W. B. S. Clymer (Ginn, 1898; Athenaetmi Press ed.). Selections from the Imaginary 
Conversations (prose only), ed. by A. G. Newcomer (Holt, 1899). Imaginary Conversations 
(selections), ed. by Havelock EUis, 3 vols. (Scott, 1889; Camelot Classics ed.). Poems 
(selected), ed. by Ernest Radford (Scott, 1887; Canterbury Poets ed.). 

Biography. W. S. Landor, by John Forster, 2 vols. (Chapman, 1869; abridged, as 
Vol. I of the works, 1874). Landor, by Sidney Colvin (MacmiUan, 1878; English Men of 
Letters series). Last Days of Landor, by Kate Field (Atlantic Monthly, April, May, June, 
1866). See also above, under "Wordsworth, Biography," Robinson (Vol. 2, chap, xii, and 
index). 

Criticisms. Blackwood's Magazine: AprU, 1824, March and AprU, 1837, Imaginary 
Conversations; January, 1854, Last Fruit oS an Old Tree. H. W. Boynton: The Poetry 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 60 1 

of Landor (Atlantic Monthly, July, 1902). Contemporary Review, August, 1871. Thomas 
De Quincey : three articles on Landor, 1847 (in Vol. 1 1 of Masson's new edition of De Quincey). 
Aubrey De Vere: Essays, chiefly on Poetry (Macmillan, 1887). Edward Dowden: Studies 
in Literature (Paul, 1878). Edinburgh Review: March, 1824, Imaginary Conversations; 
AprO, 1850, Hellenics, etc. W. E. Henley: Views and Reviews (Scribner, 1890). J. R. 
Lowell: Latest Literary Essays and Addresses. North American Review, January, 1877. 
George Saintsbury: Essays in English Literature, second series (Scribner, 1895). H. E. 
Scudder: Men and Letters (Landor as a Classic) (Houghton, 1887). Leslie Stephen: Hours 
in a Library, Vol. 2 (Smith, 1874-79; new and enlarged ed., 1892). A. C. Swinburne: Mis- 
cellanies (Chatto, 1886; the article on Landor, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica). Arthur 
Symons : The Poetry of Landor (compares English and Latin versions of some poems) (Atlantic 
Monthly, June, 1906). G. E. Woodberry: Studies in Literature and Life (Houghton, 1890). 
See also above, under "General Works, Literature," Saintsbury, Chambers, Dictionary of 
National Biography, Walker, Oliphant, Stedman. 

Bibliography. By Stephen Wheeler, in Letters and Other Unpublished Writings of 
W. S. Landor. 

ALFRED TENNYSON 

Editions. Complete Works, 6 vols. (MacmiUan, 1903; new library ed.). The Life 
and Works, 10 vols. (MacmiUan, 1899, new ed.; the life is the memoir by Tennyson's son, 
4 vols.). The Poetical Works, 7 vols. (Houghton, 1904; new Riverside ed.). The Poetical 
and Dramatic Works, 3 vols. (Houghton, 1906). The Works (Macmillan, 1893; Globe ed.). 
The Poetic and Dramatic Works, ed. by W. J. Rolfe (Houghton, 1898; Cambridge ed.; does 
not contain the latest poems, but has selections from Poems by Two Brothers, Timbuctoo, and 
the suppressed poems of 1830 and 1832). Poems by Two Brothers (MacmiUan, 1893; reprint 
of the edition of 1827); the same (CroweU, 1902). The Early Poems, ed. by J. C. CoUins 
(Putnam, 1899; reprint of Poems, 1842, with the various readings and suppressed poems). 
Suppressed Poems, ed. by J. C. Thomson (Harper, 1903). Poems, ed. by Henry Van Dyke 
(Ginn, 1903; Athenaeum Press ed.). Selections, ed. by F. J. Rowe and W. T. Webb (Mac- 
mUlan, 1893). In Memoriam, ed. by W. J. Rolfe (Houghton, 1895); ed. by C. Mansford 
(Swan, 1903); ed; by V. P. Squires (SUver, 1906). 

Biography. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a Memoir, by his Son, 2 vols. (MacmiUan, 1897; 
one-vol. ed., 1905). Tennyson, by A. C. LyaU (Macmillan, 1902; English Men of Letters 
series). Alfred Tennyson, by Andrew Lang (Dodd, 1901; Modern English Writers series). 
Tennyson, by G. K. Chesterton and Richard Garnett (Pott, 1904; Bookman Biographies 
series). Yesterdays with Authors, by J. T. Fields (Houghton, 1872). Records of Tenny- 
son, Ruskin, Browning, by Anne T. Ritchie (Harper, 1892). A Day with Tennj'son, by 
Edwin Arnold (Forum, December, 1891, Vol. 12, p. 536). Tennyson, a Personal Reminiscence, 
by James Knowles (Nmeteenth Century, January, 1893). The Voice of Tennyson, by Henry 
Van Dyke (Century Magazme, February, 1893). RecoUections of Lord Tennyson, by J. A. 
Symonds (Century Magazine, May, 1893). Memories of the Tennysons, by H. D. Rawnsley 
(MacLehose, 1900; MacmiUan). Personal RecoUections of Tennyson, by W. G. McCabe 
(Century Magazine, March, 1902). A Child's Recollections of Tennyson, by E. N. Ellison 
(Dutton, 1906). The Laureate's Country, by A. J. Church (Seeley, 1891). The Homes 
and Haunts of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, by G. S. Napier (MacLehose, 1892). 

Criticisms. Walter Bagehot: Literary Studies (Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning, 
or Pure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art in English Poetry) (Longmans, 1878-79; this essay, in the 
National Review, November, 1864). Peter Bayne: Essays in Biography and Criticism, 
first series (Tennyson and His Teachers) (Boston, 1857)- Blackwood's Magazine: May, 
1832, Poems, Chiefly Lyrical; AprU, 1849, Poems, The Princess; September, 1853, Maud; 
November, 1859, Idylls of the King; November, 1864, Enoch Arden, etc. George Brimley: 



6o2 ENGLISH POEMS 



Essays (Macmillan, 1858; reissue, 1882; the essay on Tennyson, in Cambridge Essays, 1855). 
S. A. Brooke: Tennyson, His Art and Relation to Modern Life (Putnam, 1894). G. K. 
Chesterton: Varied Types (Dodd, 1903). J. C. Collins: Illustrations of Tennyson (Chatto, 
1891). W. M. Dixon: A Primer of Tennyson (Dodd, 1896). Edward Dowden: Studies 
in Literature (Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Browning) (Paul, 1878). Edinburgh Review: April, 
1843, Poems; October, 1S49, The Princess; October, 1855, Maud, In Memoriam; April, 
1870, Idylls of the King. C. C. Everett: Essays Theological and Literary (Houghton, 1891). 
Joseph Forster: Great Teachers (Redway, 1898). L. E. Gates: Studies and Appreciations 
(Tennyson's Relation to Common Life; Nature in Tennyson's Poetry) (Macmillan, 1890). 
W. C. Gordon: The Social Ideals of Alfred Tennyson (University of Chicago Press, 1906). 
Edmund Gosse: Questions at Issue (Tennyson — and After) (Appleton, 1893). A. H. Hallam: 
Literary Remains (On Some of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry, and on the Lyrical 
Poems of Alfred Tennyson) (London, 1853; this essay, in the Englishman's Magazine, August, 
1831). Frederic Harrison: Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and Other Literary Estimates (Mac- 
millan, 1899). W. E. Henley: Views and Reviews (Scribner, 1890). R. H. Hutton: Literary 
Essays (Macmillan, 1888). Morton Luce: A Handbook to the Works of Alfred, Lord Tenny- 
son (Bell, 189s). J. S. MUl: Early Essays (Tennyson's Poems) (Bell, 1897; this essay, in 
the London Review, July, 1835). Emile Mont^gut: Ecrivains modernes de I'Angleterre, 
second series (Paris, 1889). W. P. Mustard: Classical Echoes in Tennyson (Macmillan, 1904) . 
F. W. H. Myers: Science and a Future Life (Tennyson as a Prophet) (Macmillan, 1893; 
this essay, in the Nineteenth Century, March, 1889). Herbert Paul: Men and Letters (The 
Classical Poems of Tennyson) (Lane, 1901; this essay, in the Nineteenth Century, March, 
1893). Quarterly Review: April, 1833; January, 1893. Revue des Deux Mondes: Vol. 
3S. P- 345 (1851). J. M. Robertson: Essays towards a Critical Method (The Art of Tenny- 
son) (Unwin, 1899). Josiah Royce: Studies of Good and Evil (Tennyson and Pessimism) 
(Appleton, 1898). George Saintsbury: Corrected Impressions (Heinemann, 1895). H. 
S. Salt: Tennyson as a Thinker (Reeves, 1893). Leslie Stephen: Studies of a Biographer, 
Vol. 3 (The Life of Tennyson) (Putnam, 1899). A. C. Swinburne: Miscellanies (Tennyson 
and Musset) (Chatto, 1886; Scribner); Studies in Prose and Poetry (Tennyson or Darwin?) 
(Chatto, 1894; Scribner). H.D. Traill: Aspects of Tennyson (Nineteenth Century, Decem- 
ber, 1892). Henry Van Dyke: The Poetry of Tennyson (Scribner, 1889). T. H. Warren: 
Essays of Poets and Poetry (In Memoriam after Fifty Years; Virgil and Tennyson; Tenny- 
son and Dante) (Murray, forthcoming). Theodore Watts: Tennyson as a Nature Poet; 
Teimyson as the Poet of Evolution (Nineteenth Century, May and October, 1893). West- 
minster Review: January, 1831, Poems, Chieily Lyrical; August, 1891, Tennyson's Lin- 
colnsliire Farmers. See also above, under "General Works, Literature," Taine, Saintsbury, 
Chambers, Dictionary of National Biography, Dawson, Palgrave, Walker, Oliphant, Forman, 
Stedman, Stevenson, Griffin, Haney. 

On In Memoriam. In Memoriam, annotated by the Author (Macmillan, 1906). Brother 
Azarias (P. F. Mullany): The Spiritual Sense of In Memoriam (Houghton, 1892). Elizabeth 
Chapman: A Companion to In Memoriam (Macmillan, 1888). Thomas Davidson: Prolego- 
mena to In Memoriam (Houghton, 1889). Alfred Gatty: A Key to Tennyson's In Memoriam 
(Bell, 1881). J. F. Genung : Tennyson's In Memoriam, Its Purpose and Its Structure (Hough- 
ton, 1884). 

On The Idylls of the King. Richard Jones: The Growth of the Idylls of the King 
(Lippincott, 1895). Harold Littledale: Essays on Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King 
(Macmillan, 1893). M. W. MacCallum: Tennyson's Idylls of the King and Arthurian 
Story from the Sixteenth Century (Macmillan, 1894). Howard Maynadier: The Arthur 
of the English Poets (Houghton, 1907). 

Concordances. D. B. Brightwell: A Concordance to the Entire Works of Alfred 
Teimyson (Moxon, 1869). Concordance to the Works of Alfred Tennyson (Strahan, 1870)^ 

Bibliography. R. H. Shepherd: BibUography of Tennyson (London, 1896). L. S. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 603 

Livingston: Bibliography of the First Editions in Book Form of the Works of Alfred Tenny- 
son (Dodd, 1902). In the Providence PubUc Library's Monthly Bulletin, October, 1897. 
In Dixon's Primer of Tennyson, and Luce's Handbook to the Works of Tennyson. 

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 

Editions. TIip Poetical Works, 6 vols. (Smith, 1889-90; Scribner). The Poetical 
Works, ed. by Charlotte Porter and H. A. Clarke, 6 vols. (Crowell, 1900). The Poetical 
Works, ed. by F. G. Kenyon (Macmillan, 1897; Globe ed.). The Complete Poetical Works, 
ed. by H. W. Preston (Houghton, 1900; Cambridge ed.). 

Biography. E. B. Browning, by J. H. Ingram (Roberts, 1888; Famous Women series). 
The Letters of E. B. Browning, ed. by F. G. Kenyon, 2 vols. (Smith, 1897). The Letters of 
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (1845-46), ed. by R. B. Browning (Smith, 1899). 
Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, Browning, by A. T. Ritchie (Harper, 1892). W. W. Story 
and His Friends, ed. by Henry James (Houghton, 1903). 

Criticisms. Peter Bayne: Essays in Biography and Criticism, first series (Boston, 
1857); Two Great Englishwomen (Clarke, 1881). Blackwood's Magazine: November, 
1844, Poems; January, 1857, Aurora Leigh; April, i860, Poems before Congress; April, 
1862. G.K.Chesterton: Varied Types (Dodd, 1903). L.E.Gates: Studies and Apprecia- 
tions (The Return to Conventional Life) (Macmillan, 1900). E. W. Gosse: Critical Kit-Kats 
(The Sonnets from the Portuguese) (Dodd, 1896). Emile Mont^ut: Ecrivains modemes 
de I'Angleterre, second series (Paris, 1889). Lilian Whiting: A Study of E. B. Browning 
(Little, 1899). See also above, under "General Works, Literature," Saintsbury, Chambers, 
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Dictionary of National Biography, Walker, Oliphant, Stedman. 

ROBERT BROWNING 

Editions. The Poetical Works, 9 vols. (MacmiUan, 1894; new and complete ed.). 
The Complete Poetical and Dramatic Works, ed. by G. W. Cooke, 6 vols. (Houghton, 1899; new 
Riverside ed.). The Poetical Works, ed. by Augustine BirreU, 2 vols. (MacmiUan, 1896; 
Globe ed.). The Poetical and Dramatic Works, 3 vols. (Houghton, igo6). The Complete 
Poetical and Dramatic Works, ed. by H. E. Scudder (Houghton, 1895; Cambridge ed.). 
Poems, from the Author's revised text of 1889, his own selections, with additions from his 
latest works, ed. with notes by Charlotte Porter and H. A. Clarke, 2 vols. (Crowell, 1896). 
The Ring and the Book, annotated, with introduction, by Charlotte Porter and H. A. Clarke 
(Crowell, 1897). 

Biography. The Life and Letters of Robert Browning, by Mrs. Sutherland Orr 
(Houghton, 1891). Life of Robert Browning, by WiUiam Sharp (Scott, 1890; Great Writers 
series). Robert Browning, by G. K. Chesterton (Macmillan, 1903; EngMsh Men of Letters 
series). Browning, by Edward Dowden (Dutton, 1904; Temple Biographies series). Robert 
Browning, by James Douglas (Pott, 1904; Bookman Biographies series). The Letters of 
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett (1845-46), ed. by R. B. Browning (Smith, 
1899). Robert Browning, Personaha, by Edmimd Gosse (Houghton 1890). Records of 
Tennyson, Ruskin, Browning, by A. T. Ritchie (Harper, 1892). W. W. Story and His Friends, 
ed. by Henry James (Houghton, 1903). Browning in Asolo; Browning in Venice; by K. C. 
Bronson (Century Magazine, April, 1900; February, 1902). 

Introductions, H.^ndbooks, and Criticisms. W. J. Alexander: An Introduction to 
the Poetry of Robert Browning (Ginn, 1889). Edward Berdoe: The Browning Cyclopaedia 
(Macmillan, 1892); Browning's Message to His Time — -His Rehgion, Philosophy, and Science 
(Macmillan, 1890). Augustine BirreU: Obiter Dicta, first series (On the Alleged Obscurity of 
Mr. Browning's Poetry) (Stock, 1884; Scribner); Essays and Addresses (Scribner, 1901). 
Blackwood's Magazine: May, 1871, Prolixity (The Ring and the Book). S. A. Brooke: 
The Poetry of Robert Browning (Crowell, 1902). Boston Browning Society Papers, 1886-97 



6o4 ENGLISH POEMS 



(J. W. Chadwick, Luria; C. C. Everett, Sordello; Henry Jones, Browning as a Dramatic 
Poet; Josiah Royce, Browning's Theism, and the Problem of Paracelsus; V. D. Scudder, 
The Greek Spirit in Shelley and Browning, etc.) (MacmUIan, 1897). Browning Society Papers 
(Trubner, 1881 — ). Browning Studies, select papers by members of the Browning Society, 
ed. by Edward Berdoe (Allen, 1895). J. J. Chapman: Emerson and Other Essays (Scribner, 
1898). R. W. Church: Dante and Other Essays (Sordello) (Macmillan, 1888). Contem- 
porary Review, January, 1867, Vol. 4, pp. i, 133. G. W. Cooke: A Guide-Book to the Poetic 
and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning (Houghton, 1891). Hiram Corson : An Introduction 
to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry (Heath, 1886). Edward Dowden: Studies in 
Literature (Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Browning) (Paul, 1878); Transcripts and Studies (Mr. 
Browning's Sordello) (Paul, 1887). Edinburgh Review: October, 1864, Poems, Dramatis 
Personae. C. C. Everett: Essays Theological and Literary (Houghton, 1901). Joseph 
Forster: Great Teachers (Allen, 1890; Redway, 1898, enlarged ed.). Eraser's Magazine: 
February, 1863. C. H. Herford: Robert Browning (Blackwood, 1905; Modern English 
Writers series). R. H. Hutton: Essays Theological and Literary (Strahan, 1871). Henry 
Jones: Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher (Macmillan, 1891). J. R. Lowell: 
Browning's Plays and Poems (North American Review, 184S). H. W. Mabie: Essays in 
Literary Interpretation (Dodd, 1892). M. A. MoUneux: A Phrase Book from the Poetic and 
Dramatic Works of Robert Browning, with an index of significant words not elsewhere noted 
(Houghton, 1896). P. E. More: Shelburne Essays, third series (Why Is Browning Popu- 
lar?) (Putnam, 1906). John Morley: Studies in Literature (On the Ring and the Book) 
(MacmiUan, 1891). Quarterly Review: July, 1865, Poems, Dramatis Personae. Revue des 
Deux Mondes: Vol. 35, p. 661 (1851); Vol. 85, p. 704 (1870). George Saintsbury: Cor- 
rected Impressions (Heinemann, 189s). George Santayana: Interpretations of Poetry and 
Religion (The Poetry of Barbarism — Walt Whitman, Robert Browning) (Scribner, 1900). 
LesUe Stephen: Studies of a Biographer, Vol. 3 (The Browning Letters) (Putnam, 1902). 
A. C. Swinburne: George Chapman, a Critical Essay (Chatto, 1875; Scribner). G. E. 
Woodberry: Studies in Letters and Life (Houghton, 1890). See also above, under "General 
Works, Literature," Saintsbury, Chambers, Dictionary of National Biography (Supplement), 
Dawson, Palgrave, Ohphant, Forman, Haney; and imder "Tennyson, Criticisms," Bagehot. 
Bibliography. F. J. FurnivaU: A Bibliography of Robert Browning from 1833 to 
1881 (Browning Society Papers, 1881-84). By J. P. Anderson, in Sharp's Life of Brown- 
ing. W. M. Nicoll and T. Wise: Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century (Materials 
for a Bibliography of Robert Browning) (1895). 

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 

Editions. Poems and Prose Remains, with a memoir, ed. by his wife, 2 vols. (Mac- 
millan, 1869). Poems (Macmillan, 1888). Prose Remains, with a selection from his letters, 
eind a memoir, ed. by his wife (Macmillan, 1888). Selections from the Poems, ed. by B. M. 
S. C. (Macmillan, 1894; Golden Treasury ed.). 

Biography. Memoir by Mrs. Clough (see above). Memoir by C. E. Norton, prefixed 
to an edition of the Poems (Ticknor, 1862; first in the Atlantic Monthly, April, 1862). Por- 
traits of Friends, by J. C. Shairp (Houghton, 1889). 

Criticisms. Walter Bagehot: Literary Studies (Longmans, 1878-79). Edward Dowden : 
Studies in Literature (The Transcendental Movement and Literature) (Paul, 1878). R. H. 
Hutton: Essays Theological and Literary (Strahan, 1871). North American Review: 
October, 1867, A. H. Clough. F. T. Palgrave: A. H. Clough (Eraser's Magazine, April, 
1862). T.S.Perry: Arthur Hugh Clough (Atlantic Monthly, October, 1875). J.M.Robert- 
son: New Essays towards a Critical Method (Lane, 1897). J. A. Symonds: A. H. Clough 
(Fortnightly Review, December, 1868). S. Waddington: A. H. Clough, a Monograph 
(BeU, 1883). See also above, under "General Works, Literature," Saintsbury, Chambers, 
Dictionary of National Biography, Oliphant, Stedman. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 605 

MATTHEW ARNOLD 

Editions. Poetical Works (Macmillan, 1890; Globe ed.)- Poetical Works, 3 vols. 
(Macmillan, 1895). Selected Poems (Macmillan; Golden Treasury ed.). Prose Works 
(Macmillan). 

Biography. Letters of Matthew Arnold (1848-88), ed. by G. W. E. Russell, 2 vols. 
(MacmUlan, 1895). Life of Matthew Arnold, by George Saintsbury (Dodd, 1899; Modern 
English Writers series). Matthew Arnold, by H. W. Paul (Macmillan, 1902; EngUsh Men of 
Letters series). Matthew Arnold, by G. W. E. Russell (Scribner, 1904; Literary Lives series). 
Recollections of Eminent Men, by E. P. Whipple (Ticknor, 1887). 

Criticisms. Augustine BirreU: Res Judicatae (Stock, 1892; Scribner). Blackwood's 
Magazine: September, 1849, The Strayed Reveller; March, 1854, Poems (Sohrab and Rus- 
tum, etc.). A. H. Clough: Prose Remains (Review of Some Poems by Alexander Smith and 
Matthew Arnold) (MacmiOan, 1869; this essay, as Recent English Poetry, in the North 
American Review, July, 1853). Edward Dowden: Transcripts and Studies (Paul, 1887). 
Edinburgh Review: October, 1856. Richard Garnett: Essays of an Ex-Librarian (Heine- 
mann, 1901). L. E. Gates: Three Studies in Literature (Arnold's prose works) (Macmillan, 
1899). Frederic Harrison: Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and Other Literary Estimates (Mac- 
millan, 1899). W. E. Henley: Views and Reviews (Scribner, 1890). R. H. Hutton: Literary 
Essays (MacmUlan, 1888). H. W. Paul: Men and Letters (Matthew Arnold's Letters) (Lane, 
1901). W. C. Roscoe: Poems and Essays (The Classical School of English Poetry — Matthew 
Arnold) (Chapman, i860). George Saintsbury: Corrected Impressions (Heinemann, 1895). 
Leslie Stephen: Studies of a Biographer, Vol. 2 (Putnam, 1899). A. C. Swinburne: Essays 
and Studies (Matthew Arnold's New Poems, 1867) (Chatto, 1875). T. Herbert Warren: 
Essays of Poets and Poetry (Murray, forthcoming). G. E. Woodberry: Makers of Litera- 
ture (Macmillan, 1900). See also above, under "General Works, Literature," Saintsbury, 
Chambers, Dictionary of National Biography, Dawson, Palgrave, Gates, Walker, Oliphant, 
Forman, Stedman. 

Bibliography. T. B. Smart: The BibUography of Matthew Arnold (Davy,^, 1892). 

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 

Editions. The Collected Works, ed. by W. M. Rossetti, 2 vols. (Ellis, 1886; Roberts). 
Poems, ed. by W. M. Rossetti, 7 vols. (Ellis, 1898-1901; Siddal ed.). See also, for the first 
edition of The Blessed Damozel, a facsimile reprint of The Germ (1850), the literary organ 
of the Pre-RaphaeUte brotherhood (Stock, 1901). 

Biography. Pre-Raphaelite Diaries and Letters (1835-56), ed. by W. M. Rossetti 
(London, 1900). Ruskin, Rossetti, Pre-Raphaelitism (Papers, 1854-62), ed. by W. M. 
Rossetti (Allen, 1899; Dodd). Rossetti Papers (1862-70), ed. by W. M. Rossetti (Scribner, 
1903). D. G. Rossetti, His Family Letters, with a memoir, ed. by W. M. Rossetti (EUis, 1895; 
Roberts). Letters of D. G. Rossetti to William Allingham (1854-70), ed. by G. B. Hill 
(Unwin, 1897; Stokes). Recollections of D. G. Rossetti, by Hall Caine (Stock, 1882). D. G. 
Rossetti, a Record and a Study, by WilUam Sharp (Macmillan, 1882). Life of D. G. Rossetti, 
by Joseph Knight (Scott, 1887; Great Writers series). Dante Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite 
Movement, by Esther Wood (Low, 1894; Scribner). D. G. Rossetti, an Illustrated 
Memorial of His Art and Life, by H. C. MariUier (Bell, 1899). The Rossettis, Dante 
Gabriel and Christina, by E. L. Cary (Putnam, 1900). Rossetti, by A. C. Benson (Macmil- 
lan, 1904; EngUsh Men of Letters series). Recollections of D. G. Rossetti and His Circle, by 
H. T. Dunn (Pott, 1904). The EngUsh Pre-RaphaeUte Painters, by P. H. Bate (BeU, 1899; 
Macmillan). The Pre-RaphaeUte Brotherhood, by W. Holman Hunt (Contemporary Review, 
April, May, June, 1886). 

Criticisms. Blackwood's Magazine, August, 1870. R. W. Buchanan: The Fleshly 
School of Poetry, and Other Phenomena of the Day (London, 1872; first in the Contemporary 



6o6 ENGLISH POEMS 



Review, October, 1871). Edinburgh Review: April, 1900, Morris and Rossetti. H. W. Mabie: 
Essays in Literary Interpretation (Dodd, i8p2). F. W. H. Myers: Essays, Modern (Rossetti 
and the ReUgion of Beauty) (Macmillan, 1883). Walter Pater: Appreciations (Macmillan 
1889; the essay on Rossetti, 1883). A. C. Swinburne: Essays and Studies (Chatto, 1875). 
Theodore Watts: The Truth about Rossetti (Nineteenth Century, March, 1883). See also 
above, under "General Works, Literature," Saintsbury, Chambers, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
Dictionary of National Biography, Dawson, Beers, Oliphant, Forman, Stedman. 
Bibliography. By J. P. Anderson, in Knight's Life of Rossetti. 

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI 

Editions. The Poetical Works, with a memoir and notes by W. M. Rossetti (Mac- 
millan, 1904). 

Biography. Christina Rossetti, a Biographical and Critical Study, by Mackenzie 
BeU (Roberts, 1898). Memoir by W. M. Rossetti (see above). See also above, under "D. G. 
Rossetti, Biography." 

Criticisms. A. C. Benson: Christina Rossetti (Littell's Living Age, Mar. 9, 1895). 
Edmund Gosse: Critical Kit-Kats (Dodd, 1896). P. E. More: Shelburne Essays, third 
series (Putnam, 1906). Westminster Review: Vol. 143, p. 444 (1895), The Poetry of Chris- 
tina Rossetti. See also above, under "General Works, Literature," Saintsbury, Chambers, 
Dictionary of National Biography, Oliphant, Stedman. 

WILLIAM MORRIS 

Editions. The Poetical Works, 11 vols. (Longmans, 1896-98). The Earthly Para- 
dise (Longmans, one-vol. ed.). The Earthly Paradise (Reeves, 1890; one-vol. ed.). 

Biography. The Life of WUliam Morris, by J. W. Mackail, 2 vols. (Longmans, 1899). 
William Morris, His Art, His Writings, and His Public Life, by Aymer Vallance (Macmillan, 
1897). WiUiam Morris, Poet, Craftsman, Sociahst, by E. L. Cary (Putnam, 1902). See 
also above, under "D. G. Rossetti, Biography." 

Criticisms. Mackenzie BeU: William Morris, a Eulogy (Fortnightly Review, Novem- 
ber, 1896). Blackwood's Magazine: July, 1869, The Life and Death of Jason, The Earthly 
Paradise, Parts I and II; May, 1870. G. K. Chesterton: Varied Types (William Morris 
and His School) (Dodd, 1903). Walter Crane: William Morris (Scribner's Magazine, 
July, 1897; on his art work). Edinburgh Review: January, 1871, The Earthly Paradise; 
January, 1897, William Morris, Poet and Craftsman; April, 1900, Morris and Rossetti. 
Andrew Lang: The Poetry of William Morris (Contemporary Review, August, 1882). 
F. W. H. Myers: Modern Poets and the Meaning of Life (Nineteenth Century, January, 1893). 
George Saintsbury: Corrected Impressions (Heinemann, 1895). William Sharp: William 
Morris, the Man and His Work (Atlantic Monthly, December, 1896). A. C. Swinburne: 
Essays and Studies (Morris's Life and Death of Jason) (Chatto, 1875; Scribner). Arthur 
Symons: Studies in Two Literatures (Smithers, 1897). Theodore Watts (Watts-Dunton) : 
William Morris (Athenaeum, October 10, i8g6). Julius von Riegel: Die Quellen von William 
Morris Dichtung, The Earthly Paradise (Varnhagen's Erlanger Beitrage zur englischen 
Philologie, No. 9 [i8go]. See also above, under "General Works, Literature," Saintsbury, 
Chambers, Dictionary of National Biography, Dawson, Walker, Oliphant, Stedman. 

Bibliography. Temple Scott: A Bibliography of the Works of William Morris (Bell, 
1897). H. B. Forman: The Books of WiUiam Morris Described, with some account of his 
doings in literature and in the aUied crafts (HoUings, 1897). In The Dial, Vol. 21, p. 209. 

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 

Editions. The Poems, 6 vols. (Harper, 1904). (The dramas and essays are to appear 
in six volumes, in the same series. Chatto and Windus publish aU the works.) Selections 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 607 

from the Poetical Works (Chatto, 1887). Selections from the Poetical Works, ed. by R. H. 
Stoddard (Crowell, 1884). Selected Poems, ed. by W. M. Payne (Heath, 1906; Belles 
Lettres series). 

Biography. A. C. Swinburne, a Study, by Theodore Wratislaw (Wessels, 1900; English 
Writers of To-Day series). The New International Encyclopaedia, The Encyclopedia Ameri- 
cana, Men and Women of the Time, etc. 

Criticisms. Peter Bayne: Mr. Arnold and Mr. Swinburne (Contemporary Review, 
1867, Vol. 6, p. 337). Robert Buchanan: The Fleshly School of Poetry, and Other Phenomena 
of the Day (London, 1872; first in the Contemporary Review, October, 1871). Edinburgh 
Review: July, 1865, Atalanta in Calydon. Eraser's Magazine: November, 1866, Mr. Swin- 
burne and His Critics. Edmund Gosse: Mr. Swinburne (Century Magazine, May, 1902). 
J. R. Lowell: My Study Windows (Swinburne's Tragedies) (Literary Essays, Vol. 2, in Lowell's 
collected works; the essay on Swinburne appeared in 1866). R. M. Milnes (Lord Houghton) : 
Mr. Swinburne's Bothwell (Fortnightly Review, July, 1874). P. E. More: Shelburne Essays, 
third series (Putnam, 1906). F. W. H. Myers: Modem Poets and the Meaning of Life 
(Nineteenth Century, January, 1893). W. M. Rossetti: Swinburne's Poems and Ballads, 
a Criticism (London, 1866). George Saintsbury: Corrected Impressions (Heinemann, 1895). 
A. C. Swinburne: Notes on Poems and Reviews (London, 1866); Under the Microscope 
(White, 1872). G. E. Woodberry: The Torch (McClure, 1905). See also above, under 
"General Works, Literature," Chambers, Dawson, Walker, Forman, Stedman. 

Bibliography. R. H. Shepherd: The BibUography of Swinburne (Redway, 1887). 
T.J.Wise: A Bibliographical List of the Scarcer Works and Uncollected Writings of Swin- 
burne (London, privately printed, 1897). 



INDICES 



INDICES 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 



Arnold, Matthew (1822-88), 406 

Bowles, William Lisle (1762-1850), i 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1809-61), 330 

Browning, Robert (1812-89), 334 

Byron, George Gordon (1788-1824), 125 

Campbell, Thomas (i 777-1844), 102 

Clough, Arthur Hugh (1819-61), 397 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834), 54 

Hunt, Leigh (1784-1859), 227 

Keats, John (1795-1821), 230 

Landor, Walter Savage (1775-1864), 265 



Moore, Thomas (1779-1852), 174 
Morris, William (1834-96), 462 
Rogers, Samuel (1763-1855), 2 
Rossetti, Christina (1830-94), 456 
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828-82), 434 
Scott, Walter (1771-1832), 109 
Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822), 182 
Southey, Robert (1774-1843), 94 
Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837 — ), 480 

Tennyson, Alfred (1809-92), 277 
Wordsworth, WiUiam (1770-1850), 3 



INDEX OF TITLES 



A Fiesolan Idyl, 266 

A Forsaken Garden, 497 

A Grammarian's Fimeral, 381 

A Leave-Taking, 484 

A Musical Instrument, 332 

A Song in Time of Order, 480 

Abt Vogler, 386 

Adam, LiUth, and Eve, 395 

Adonais, 211 

Ah, What Avails the Sceptred Race, 265 

Alastor, 183 

Among the Rocks, 385 

An Apology, 462 

An Evening Walk, 3 

Animal Tranquillity and Decay, 14 

At Tynemouth Priory, i 

Battle of Beal' an Duine (from The Lady of 
the Lake), 116 

Battle of the Baltic, 105 

Ben Jonson, 500 

Bishop Bruno, 96 

Blessed Are They That Have Not Seen, 402 

Bonny Dundee, 123 

Boot and Saddle (from Cavalier Tunes), 336 

Break, Break, Break, 309 

Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast as Thou 
Art, 265 

Byron and Childe Harold (from Childe Har- 
old's Pilgrimage), 145 



Calm Is the Fragrant Air, 52 

Cavalier Tunes, 335 

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, 141 

"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," 

371 
Christabel, 76 
Claribel, 277 

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, 34 
Coronach, 115 
County Guy, 122 
Crossing the Bar, 330 

Don Juan, 160 
Dover Beach, 429 

Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of 

Peele Castle, 41 
Endymion, 233 

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, 126 
Epilogue, 396 
Epipsychidion, 206 
Expostulation and Reply, 8 

Fancy, 242 

For A Venetian Pastoral, 453 
For The Wine of Circe, 454 
Fra Lippo Lippi, 361 
France: An Ode, 72 

Give a Rouse (from Cavalier Tunes), 336 
Greece (from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage) 
143 



611 



6l2 



ENGLISH POEMS 



Heap Cassia, Sandal-Buds, and Stripes, 334 

Heart's Hope (from The House of Life), 448 

Hertha, 488 

Hohenlinden, 104 

Home Thoughts, from Abroad, 342 

Home Thoughts, from the Sea, 343 

Hope and Fear, 499 

Hope Evermore and Believe, 398 

"How They Brought the Good News from 

Ghent to Aix," 340 
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, 185 
Hymn to Pan (from Endymion), 234 
'Y/ivos 'Avixvoi, 400 
Hyperion, 238 

I Stood Tiptoe upon a Little Hill, 230 

I Strove with None, 276 

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, 39 

If Thou Indeed Derive Thy Light from 

Heaven, 51 
In Memoriam A. H. H., 310 
Influence of Natural Objects, 15 
Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath, 93 
Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, 

SO 
It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free, 35 

John Keats, 455 

Juan and Haid6e (from Don Juan), 165 

Kaiser Dead, 432 

Kubla Khan, 75 

La Belle Dame sans Merci, 264 

Lachin Y Gair, 125 

Lake Leman in Calm and Storm (from 

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage), 151 
Lalla Rookh, 179 
Lamia, 259 

Lesbia Hath a Beaming Eye, 17s 
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern 

Abbey, 10 
Lines Written in Early Spring, 7 
Lines Written in Kensington Gardens, 414 
Lochinvar, 114 
Locksley Hall, 302 
London, 1802, 35 
Lord Ullin's Daughter, 107 
Love among the Ruins, 359 
Love Enthroned (from The House of Life), 

447 
Lovesight (from The House of Life), 447 
Lucy Gray, 17 

Marching Along (from Cavalier Tunes), 335 
Mary Magdalene, 454 
Mary's Girlhood, 453 



Meeting at Night, 343 

Michael, 21 

Mild Is the Parting Year, and Sweet, 266 

Milton, 322 

Morte D 'Arthur, 29s 

Most Sweet It Is with Unuplifted Eyes, S3 

Mother of Hermes, and Still Youthful Maia, 

237 
My Days among the Dead Are Past, loi 
My Heart Leaps Up, 34 
My Last Duchess, 337 

Northern Farmer, Old Style, 320 
Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow 
Room, 43 

Ode: Intimations of Immortality, 45 

Ode on a Grecian Urn, 246 

Ode on Melancholy, 248 

Ode to a Nightingale, 244 

Ode to Duty, 40 

Ode to the West Wind, 187 

Oft, in the Stilly Night, 177 

Oh, Come to Me when Daylight Sets, 176 

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer, 

230 
On Sitting Down to Read "King Lear" 

Once Again, 237 
On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth 

Year, 173 

Palladium, 430 

Parting at Morning, 344 

"Perche Pensa? Pensando S' Invecchia," 

402 
Personal Talk, 44 
Proem (from Endymion), 233 
Prospice, 384 
Proud Maisie, 122 

Queen Mab, 182 

Qui Laborat, Orat, 399 

Rabbi Ben Ezra, 389 

Rizpah, 323 

Robert Browning, 502 

Rome and Freedom (from Childe Harold's 

Pilgrimage), 155 
Rondel, 483 

Saul, 347 

Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth, 397 

Self-Dependence, 411 

Shakespeare, 407 

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways, 17 

She Walks in Beauty, 129 

She Was a Phantom of Delight, 38 

Silent Noon (from The House of Life), 448 



INDICES 



613 



Simon Lee, 4 

Sister Helen, 438 

Sleep at Sea, 457 

So Fair, so Sweet, withal so Sensitive, S3 

Song, 456 

Songs in Absence, 401 

Sonnets from the Portuguese, 330 

Spain (from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage), 141 

Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse, 423 

Summum Bonum, 396 

Sweet and Low, 317 

Tears, Idle Tears, 316 

Thalaba the Destroyer, 97 

The Bells, Ostend, i 

The Better Part, 431 

The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint 
Praxed's Church, 344 

The Blessed Damozel, 434 

The Brook, 318 

The Choice (from The House of Life), 451 

The Cloud, 200 

The Dark Glass (from The House of Life), 
448 

The Death of Artemidora, 268 

The Death of Paris, 463 

The Eve of St. Agnes, 249 

The Forced Recruit, 333 

The Forsaken Merman, 407 

The Future, 412 

The Garden of Proserpine, 485 

The Green Linnet, 36 

The Hamadryad, 268 

The Harp That Once through Tara's Halls, 
174 

The HoUy Tree, 94 

The House of Life, 447 

The Indian Serenade, 189 

The Laboratory, 338 

The Lady of Shalott, 277 

The Lady of the Lake, 116 

The Last Ride Together, 377 

The Latest Decalogue, 397 

The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 109 

The Lost Leader, 342 

The Lotus-Eaters, 291 

The Mask of Anarchy, 190 

The Ocean (from Childe Harold's Pilgrim- 
age), IS9 

The One Hope (from The House of Life), 
452 

The Palace of Art, 282 

The Patriot, 380 
' The Pilgrims, 494 



The Pleasures of Hope, 102 

The Pleasures of Memory, 2 

The Prisoner of Chillon, 130 

The Recluse, 19 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 54 

The Sah of the Earth, 499 

The Sceptic and His Poem (from Don Juan), 

168 
The Scholar Gipsy, 415 
The Shadow, 403 

The Shipwreck (from Don Juan), 160 
The Simplon Pass, 14 
The Solitary Reaper, 37 
The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls, 318 
The Story of Rimini, 227 
The Sunbows, 500 
The Sun's Shame (from The House of Life), 

452 
The Tables Turned, 9 
The Vision of Judgment, 170 
The Woodspurge, 455 
The World Is Too Much with Us, 44 
The World's Great Age Begins Anew, 224 
The Year 's at the Spring, 335 
This Life Is Full of Numbness and of Balk, 

461 
Three Seasons, 456 

To , 22s 

To a ChUd, S3 

To a Friend, 406 

To a Skylark ("Ethereal minstrel"), 51 

To a Skylark ("Hail to thee "), 203 

To Age, 276 

To Autumn, 248 

To Night, 226 

To the Cuckoo, 33 

To the Men of Kent, 38 

To Thomas Moore, 140 

To Virgil, 326 

Twopenny Post-Bag, Letter V, 177 

Ulysses, 293 
Up-HiU, 459 

Vastness, 327 

Venice (from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage), 
iSS 

Wages, 322 

Wanting Is — What ? 395 

Waterloo (from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage), 

149 
West London, 431 
When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be, 

236 



614 ENGLISH POEMS 

When the Hounds of Spring Are on Winter's . "With Whom Is No Variableness, Neither 
Traces, 482 Shadow of Turning," 402 

When We Two Parted, 129 Work without Hope, 94 

Willowwood (from The House of Life), Ye Mariners of England, 103 

■^^ Yes, in the Sea of Life Enisled, 422 

Winter Ram, ,460 You Ask Me Why, the' 111 at Ease, 202 

With an Album, 275 Youth Gone, and Beauty Gone, 461 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 

A chieftain, to the Highlands bound 107 

"A cup for hope!" she said .' . . . 456 

A noble range it was, of many a rood 227 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever 233 

A wanderer is man from his birth 412 

Ah, County Guy, the hour is nigh 122 

Ah, what avails the sceptred race 265 

Ah, what can aU thee, wretched wight 264 

AH Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair 94 

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee 396 

And thus a moon rolled on, and fair Haidee 165 

"Artemidora, gods invisible" 268 

As I lay asleep in Italy ipo 

As slow I climb the cliff's ascending side 1 

At summer eve, when heaven's ethereal bow 102 

At the midnight in the sOence of the sleep-time 396 

Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses 125 

Behold her, single in the field 37 

Behold, in various throngs the scribbling crew 126 

Beholding youth and hope in mockery caught 452 

Beneath the shadow of dawn's aerial cope 499 

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed 36 

Bishop Bruno awoke in the dead midnight . 96 

Boot, saddle, to horse, and away 336 

Break, break, break 3op 

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art 265 

Broad-based, broad-fronted, bounteous, multiform . . . . " . . . . 500 

Brook and road 14 

By what word's power, the key of paths untrod 448 

Calm is the fragrant air, and loth to lose 52 

Clear, placid Leman, thy contrasted lake 151 

Come back, come back ! Behold with straining mast 401 

Come, dear children, let us away 407 

Comrades, leave me here a httle, while as yet 't is early morn 302 

Contemplate all this work of Time 315 

"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land 291 

Crouched on the pavement, close by Belgrave Square 431 

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale 238 

Does the road wind up-hill all the way 459 

Dusk-haired and gold-robed o'er the golden wine 454 



INDICES 615 

Earth has not any thing to show more fair 34 

Earth, Ocean, Air, belovfed brotherhood 183 

Eat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die 451 

Ethereal minstrel, pilgrim of the sky 51 

Ever let the Fancy roam 242 

Every valley drinks 460 

Fair Greece ! sad relic of departed worth 143 

Fear death ? — to feel the fog in my throat 384 

Five years have past; five summers, with the length 10 

Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song 322 

Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill 415 

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand 331 

Grow old along with me 389 

Hail to thee, bhthe spirit 203 

He held no dream worth waking : so he said 502 

He is gone on the mountain 115 

Heap cassia, sandal-buds, and stripes 334 

Here, where precipitate Spring with one light bound 266 

Here, where the world is quiet 485 

Hope evermore and believe, O man, for e'en as thy thought 398 

How do I love thee ? Let me count the ways 331 

How sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal i 

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave 361 

I am that which began 488 

I arise from dreams of thee 189 

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers 200 

I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house 282 

I come from haunts of coot and hem 318 

I dreamed a dream; I dreamt that I espied 403 

I heard a thousand blended notes 7 

I know not whether I am proud 275 

I marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair 447 

I said, "Then, dearest, since 't is so", 377 

I sat with Love upon a woodside well 449 

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he ... _ 340 

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs 155 

I stood tiptoe upon a little hiU 230 

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife 276 

I thought once how Theocritus had sung 330 

I wandered lonely as a cloud 39 

I was an infant when my mother went 182 

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged pile 41 

I weep for Adonais — ^he is dead 211 

If childhood were not in the world 499 

If from great Nature's or our own abyss 168 

If from the pubHc way you turn your steps 21 

If thou indeed derive thy light from heaven 51 

In a coign of the cliS between lowland and highland 497 

In the last month of Troy's beleaguerment 463 

In the ranks of the Austrian you found him 333 

In the sweet shire of Cardigan 4 



6i6 ENGLISH POEMS 



In this lone, open glade I lie 414 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 75 

Is thy face like thy mother's, ray fair child 145 

It fortifies my soul to know . 402 

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free 35 

It is an ancient Mariner 54 

It little profits that an idle king 293 

It was roses, roses, all the way 380 

Just for a handful of silver he left us 342 

Kentish Sir Byng stood for his king 335 

King Charles, and who '11 do him right now 336 

Kissing her hair I sat against her feet 483 

Lesbia hath a beaming eye 175 

Let us begin and carry up this corpse 381 

Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear 484 

Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man 431 

Many a hearth upon our dark globe sighs after many a vanished face . . . . 327 

Mild is the parting year, and sweet 266 

Milton, thou shouldst be living at this hour 35 

Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes S3 

Mother of Hermes, and still youthful Maia 237 

Much have I travelled in the realms of gold 230 

My boat is on the shore 140 

My days among the dead are past loi 

My dear Lady ! I 've been just sending out 177 

My first thought was, he lied in every word • • 37i 

My hair is grey, but not with years 130 

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains 244 

My heart leaps up when I behold 34 

My letters ! all dead paper, mute and white 331 

My own dim life should teach me this 310 

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist 248 

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the northwest died away 343 

Not I myself know all my love for thee 448 

Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly 338 

Nims fret not at their convent's narrow room 43 

O blithe new-comer ! I have heard 33 

O golden-tongued Romance, with serene lute 237 

O happy they whose hearts receive 402 

O mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies 322 

O only Source of aU our light and life 399 

O reader, hast thou ever stood to see 94 

O thou that after toil and storm 310 

O Thou Whose image in the shrine 400 

"O thou whose mighty palace-roof doth hang" . , 234 

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being 187 

O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west 114 

Of heaven or hell I have no power to sing 462 

Of Nelson and the North 105 

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray 17 



INDICES 617 

Oft, in the stilly night 177 

Oh, come to me when daylight sets 1 76 

Oh, good gigantic smile o' the brown old Earth 385 

Oh, lovely Spain, renowned, romantic land 141 

Oh, Rome, my country, city of the soul ' 155 

Oh, to be in England now that April 's there 342 

Oh yet we trust that somehow good 311 

On either side the river lie 277 

On Linden, when the sun was low 104 

On man, on Nature, and on human hfe 19 

One day, it thundered and lightened 39S 

One word is too often profaned 225 

Others abide our question. Thou art free 407 

Proud Maisie is in the wood 122 

Push hard across the sand 480 

Rhaicos was born amid the hills wherefrom 268 

Roman Virgil, thou that singest 326 

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea 344 

Said Abner, "At last thou art come! Ere I tell, ere thou speak" 347 

Say not the struggle naught availeth 397 

Season of mists and meUow fruitfulness 248 

Set where the upper streams of Simois flow 430 

She dwelt among the untrodden ways 17 

She walks in beauty, like the night 129 

She was a phantom of delight 38 

Small service is true service while it lasts 53 

So all day long the noise of battle rolled 295 

"So careful of the type?" but no 313 

So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive S3 

So on a violet bank 97 

Sound the deep waters 457 

Spray of song that springs in April, light of love that laughs through May . . . 500 

St. Agnes' eve — ah, bitter chill it was 249 

Stem Daughter of the Voice of God 40 

Stop ! for thy tread is on an Empire's dust 149 

Sunset and evening star 330 

Sweet and low, sweet and low ^ 317 

Swiftly walk over the western wave 226 

Tax not the royal saint with vain expense So 

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean 316 

That each, who seems a separate whole 311 

That which we dare invoke to bless 316 

That 's my last Duchess painted on the wall 337 

The awful shadow of some unseen Power 185 

The bird, with fading light who ceased to thread 3 

The blessed damozel leaned out 434 

The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me 206 

The feast was over in Branksome tower 109 

The grey sea and the long black land 343 

The harp that once through Tara's halls i74 

The little hedgerow birds 14 



6l8 ENGLISH POEMS 



The minstrel came once more to view ii6 

The sea is cahn to-night 429 

The ship was evidently settling now 160 

The splendour falls on castle walls 318 

The varlet was not an ill-favoured knave . 170 

The weltering London ways, where children weep 455 

The wind flapped loose, the wind was still . . . 455 

The wish that of the living whole 312 

The world is too much with us: late and soon 44 

The world's great age begins anew . . . ^ 224 

The year 's at the spring 335 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods 159 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream 45 

This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect 453 

This Life is full of numbness and of balk 461 

This sycamore, oft musical with bees 93 

Thou shalt have one God only; who 397 

Thou still unravished bride of quietness 246 

Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused 423 

'T is the middle of night by the castle clock 76 

'T is time this heart should be unmoved 173 

To spend uncounted years of pain 402 

To the Lords of Convention 't was Claver'se who spoke 123 

Twilight's soft dews steal o'er the village green 2 

Up! up! my friend, and quit your books 9 

Upon a time, before the faery broods 259 

Vanguard of Liberty, ye men of Kent 38 

Vanity, saith the Preacher, vanity 344 

Wailing, waiUng, wailing, the wind over land and sea 323 

Wanting is — what 39S 

Water, for anguish of the solstice: — nay 4S3 

Weary of myself, and sick of asking 411 

Welcome, old friend ! These many years 276 

What, Kaiser dead ? The heavy news 432 

What was he doing, the great god Pan 332 

Wheer 'asta bean saw long and mea Uggin' 'ere aloan 320 

When do I see thee most, beloved one 447 

When I am dead, my dearest 456 

When I have fears that I may cease to be 236 

When the hounds of Spring are on Winter's traces 482 

When vain desire at last and vain regret 452 

When we two parted 129 

Where Claribel low-heth . 277 

Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles . . . , 359 

Who has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere 179 

Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass 494 

Who loves not Knowledge ? Who shall rail 314 

Who prop, thou ask'st, in these bad days, my mind 406 

"Why did you melt your waxen man" 438 

"Why, WiUiam, on that old grey stone" 8 

"Why wilt thou cast the roses from thine^ihair", 454 



INDICES 619 

Wings have we, and as far as we can go 44 

Wisdom and Spirit of the universe , 15 

Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build 386 

Ye clouds, that far above me float and pause 72 

Ye mariners of England 103 

Yes, in the sea of life enisled 422 

You ask me why, the' iU at ease . . . . . 292 

You say, but with no touch of scorn 313 

Your hands lie opien in the long fresh grass 448 

Youth gone, and beauty gone — if ever there . 461 



SEP IC I90F 



